Yachting: NZ take the weather with them

Roger 'Clouds' Badham. Photo / Getty Images

The Volvo Ocean Race round the world began overnight with an in-port race before the crews set out on nearly 40,000 nautical miles of yachting intensity and hardship. Paul Lewis talks to a key member of New Zealand's Camper crew who does not sail on the boat but whose presence is vital

'This is a very hard race - they're all crazy - and it is sailed to a degree of intensity that most people don't understand or can't believe the rigour of it. It is very, very arduous and sometimes you have to question their sanity - but that's another issue."

The speaker is Roger "Clouds" Badham, the veteran meteorologist known round the world for being at the top of his trade and the New Zealand team's weather guru for the duration of the Volvo Ocean Race. Clouds is an Australian, now into his 60s, but has been an integral part of various New Zealand yachting campaigns, including the America's Cup, for years.

Clouds' expertise has become so well known that his life is a series of travels round the world to yachting gigs where his reading of the weather - a sailor's best friend or worst enemy - is treated like gold. His reputation extended to other sports; he has done some F1 Grands Prix racing (including a stint for Ferrari) where the weather, if interpreted correctly, can also mean the difference between winning and losing.

Clouds - no one seems ever to call him Roger - moves from stopover to stopover, arriving early enough to assess weather data and provide Camper with what he calls "the philosophy of the leg".

"It is a big call," he says. "Whether it's a 15-day, a 20-day or a 30-day leg, when they sail out of port, they are making a commitment as to where they go. You can't just pick the boat up and put it somewhere else in the ocean. They are committed to a course and to sailing it."

So Clouds has to analyse weather patterns to help his crew plot an advantageous path. For anyone in Auckland, for example, where the weather can be the famed four seasons in one day, the idea of predicting the weather sounds odd. To hear him tell it, Clouds just uses output from the world's weather models, assessing patterns for 10 days ahead.

"The global weather forecasts are pretty bloody good," he says. "They are a lot better than they were 10 years ago and 10 years ago they were a lot better than they were 20 years ago. I just use the models and give them 10 days of what I think - in the first leg (from Alicante to Cape Town) that gets them about halfway, down to the Equator and The Doldrums; it just gives them a heads-up on what they should be doing."

Modest stuff, but any sailor who has worked with Clouds knows that it is his experience; his analysis and interpretation of the models and the patterns which is where the real gold is found.

Clouds holds the sailors in high regard: "I don't think the level of racing or the intensity of the racing is appreciated by the public and not even by other sailors. It is a very, very tough race - you are wet for up to 30 days on end, you get little sleep. It's like having a lap of an America's Cup course but over 10,000 miles.

"It's like the difference between the 100m and the marathon but even in the marathon, the guy in front can't ease off by one second or he'll be overtaken. That's what it is like in the Volvo - even if you are in front, you can't relax unless, maybe, you get lucky and get a real break on the field.

"You are constantly pushing the boat hard. If you got that lucky break, you can then sail without having to do anything stupid but if you are sailing neck and neck - and that is what often happens - you really give it everything and push everything to the limit and that's when you can break the boat. I don't think people see the intensity of that, not even people in the sailing community."

There are only six yachts in this Volvo - the smallest field ever - but many are picking the racing to be among the closest and most exciting. Camper, the US entry Puma, and Spain's Telefonica are considered to have the best chance of winning with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (skippered by British Olympian Ian Walker) also a threat along with France's Groupama (an intriguing entry of mostly multi-hull sailors skippered by Franck Cammas). The only yacht not really accorded much of a chance of winning is the Chinese entry, Sanya, skippered by New Zealand's Mike Sanderson. All bar Sanya are racing brand new Volvo 70 yachts, capable of getting up to 42km/hr.

"I hope not," says Clouds when asked if he thought the racing would be closer in this version of the Volvo. "I want Camper to be right out in front."

What happens in the race will be dictated not just by Clouds' weather advice, but the experience of those on board.

"Five minutes before the start of the race, that's it," says Clouds of his function. "There is no more communication with the outside world."

However, the crews do get identical information on weather and other data sent to each boat by the race authorities. They use identical software to analyse the data and often end up making the same decisions.

"If you didn't give them any information and tell them where the other boats are, they would tend to wander all over the ocean - imagine that. This way, they tend to stick closer together and that makes for a more exciting race."

Those on board also have to have eyes, ears and noses for the weather and subtleties like windshifts.

It is a recurring theme of America's Cup regattas that the sailing crew have to be able to recognise and identify unimaginably subtle changes like windshifts - and masters like Emirates Team New Zealand's Adam Beashel and Alinghi's Brad Butterworth seem able to read the water in mysterious ways beyond the ken of we mere landlubbers.

Clouds says Camper skipper Chris Nicholson, young gun Adam Minoprio and the evergreen Stu Bannatyne are among those on board with a real touch for such things.

Clouds is putting the finishing touches to his advice for Camper and will then head off on an America's Cup assignment and then the ISAF world yachting championships in Perth before going to Cape Town to prepare his next philosophy.

The race begins with the in-port regatta overnight and the yachts begin the first leg on Saturday.