Volvo Ocean Race 2011/2012 - Alexander Simonis comments the designs

Hi Anders, we where driving one of the umpire boats so we got about as close as you can to the action .( that is other than sailing on one of them).
Telefonica just looks best prepared from every aspect, making the right choices and the least mistakes. Camper and Abu Dhabi look very powerfull and fast at times as does Puma. Although Abu dhabi gave us the idea of showing to have slightly less righting moment probably due to a slightly narrower waterline beam. From a designers point of view I think these 3rd gen boats are faster and more closely matched, groupama seems a bit of the pace during the last 3 days we spent on the water watching them.