I’ve done a few stories for the guys at the Volvo Ocean Race over the last few years, some leg previews and technical pieces about the boats, but this week was the first time that I’ve returned to the Ten Zulu territory for the Volvo Ocean Race website. The Ten Zulu was a tactical and strategic commentary on the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race that was published daily at 10:00UTC, or Ten Zulu in aviation parlance.
It turned out to be quite a marathon, about 1500 words a day of detailed weather and strategic analysis for about 95% of the days they were out on the water. There were also live blogs for the finishes, commentary for the tv on the starts, and travelling to the ports to do the interviews for the book Spanish Castle to White Night.
Now, older, wiser and with two young children and an (albeit part-time) day job, I’m just doing occasional pieces on the key moments of the long legs, and reviews of the short legs -- opening with this strategic review of Leg 1. It’s similar to something I did for B&G (a blog slot now held by Libby Greenhalgh) for the 2014-15 race, but it’s great to be back writing about the race on the main website.
The leg previews on volvooceanrace.com are also my work, and having written these for several editions, I wanted to take a different approach. This time around I made it all about the transitions between the global weather patterns. These transitions dominate the strategy for each leg and I wanted to make this much clearer and upfront – see what you think, here’s the one for Leg 2... I’d love to hear any thoughts over on my Facebook page.