INTERVIEW WITH MARK RUDIGER ON JANUARY 4, 2002
AFTER WINNING LEG 3 OF THE VOLVO RACE

Photo by Thierry Martinez - ASSA ABLOY

Mark Rudiger demonstrated in navigating Paul Cayard's EF Language victory in the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race that he could find his way around the planet as well as he could find Hawaii or Mexico in all of those West Coast races he had sailed over the years.

But now that it has a new name--the Volvo Ocean Race--some observers wondered whether it had become a new game that Rudiger didn't know how to play. Rudiger's boat is Assa Abloy, sponsored by the Swedish lock company, and after the first two legs when he received-and accepted-blame for the fifth- and sixth-place finishes, some thought the navigator should be locked up.

For shame. Assa Abloy not only won the 57th Sydney-Hobart Race, but that 23-minute victory launched the boat into a solid lead and a winning margin of almost two hours at Auckland, N.Z., despite three ailing crew members.

Freshly ashore, Rudiger talked about the successful and adventurous Leg 3 and his plans for Leg 4.

Q: How are the afflicted crew doing?

Rudiger: "They all seem to be recovering quite well, between winning the race and getting ashore. [Jason Carrington and Guillermo Altadill] are looking a lot better, and Magnus [Olsson] should be back in fighting form again."

Q: Is it true that coming out of Sydney, you used the smoke from the brush fires for navigation?

Rudiger: "You could see a lot of what was going on with the weather patterns from the smoke. It helped us tell when a change in the wind was gonna come and we could see how the front was approaching with the updrafts and downdrafts. It was a meteorological phenomenon. It did help. Everybody was looking at it the same way."

Q: Was the waterspout a new experience for you?

Rudiger: "The first time I'd ever been that close to one . . . about a quarter-mile or so. I'd seen them around other boats, but this is the first time I'd been on a boat that had to drop all the sails and just hold on."

Q: What was the wind velocity?

Rudiger: "We had a sustained 65 knots. It came out of nowhere, was the amazing thing."

Q: Was it scary for a veteran sailor?

Rudiger: "It's a strange phenomenon for people who aren't used to being around twisters. You see movies about them, but when you see one in real life you're a little nervous."

Q: Then you had no wind at all close to Tasmania.

Rudiger: "Before coming into the entrance to the Derwent River, coming underneath Tasman Island, we had a feeling the wind was probably going to shut down because of the time of night. In those cases all you can do is look at where other guys are parking up and make the best guess on where you think the wind is gonna fill from.

"We came in in the middle of the pack. A couple of guys cut inside us and were gaining and it was tempting to follow 'em, but Chris Larson was driving, and he knew better and called for a jibe. We jibed and set up outside of everybody. After sitting there without any wind for a few hours the next puff came in, we got it first, got some separation and took off. We were gone from there."

Q: How large a factor was Larson on the overall leg?

Rudiger: "He was a big factor-not that we couldn't have won either one of these races without him, but it certainly helped secure our spot and keeps the intensity up on deck a little higher by adding the boat-to-boat tactics to our program."

Q: But he's not doing to next leg?

Rudiger: "We set up a [bunk] for him down there and might just chain him up."

Q: Was your confidence shaken after first two legs?

Rudiger: "Like James Bond used to say, shaken but not stirred. I've lost enough races to know that my game plan has worked the majority of the time. We did decide that we'd try and hang a little closer to the other guys-but they wouldn't let us."

Q: Actually, you were all by yourselves coming out of Hobart.

Rudiger: "That's right. We set our course and the guys coming out behind us couldn't follow us because we were going the high road, so they tried to gain by going the low road. We covered that game a little bit and we did pay initially by going from first to third trying to cover.

"So we said, 'Look, this is silly, we're falling into their game,' so we stuck to our game more. We did what we usually do but we didn't have any bad breaks this time, which is what hurt us on the last two legs."

Q: Why was the north so good?

Rudiger: "Our weather team, headed up by George and Ken from Commanders Weather, had laid out before we left Sydney that the next big pressure was gonna come in from the north. The quickest way to get there was to go northeast of rhumb line.

"So the weather pattern between where we were and the new pressure was very complex and confused, and all the models were disagreeing with each other. In a case like that, I just felt like, well, let's take the shortest distance. I found a model that I thought was more consistent than the rest and worked with that. I don't think the other guys were doing that.

"I think [Amer Sports One skipper Grant] Dalton sort of caught on to it and adjusted to it, but the other guys were stuck with their own plans. Sometimes the weather separates more than you expect."

Q: How many navigators have won a Transpac and a Sydney-Hobart in the same year?

Rudiger (laughing): "Maybe Stan Honey. This is my third [Sydney-Hobart win], so I'm two for three."

Q: Coming up next is the second Southern Ocean leg. Four years ago EFL won this leg by an incredible 4 1/2 days.

Rudiger: "We wouldn't mind doing that again. It's going to be a little tougher with this fleet. We've always known we have the boat to do it and we have the crew to do it. Now it's up to us to keep it pointed in the right direction and not have any breakdowns."

Q: What were the keys four years ago?

Rudiger: "We weren't too far away from the fleet but we always pushed south of everybody and got more pressure. Then when it got into the real heavy hard running we just had boat speed and pushed the boat harder than everybody. We got a lead to where we got into a different weather pattern and were able to get around the Horn before the high pressure filled in. Everybody behind us got stuck in that."

Q: Are you going to follow the same plan?

Rudiger: "I like to play with what's happening now. I have all the EF tracks plotted on the chart as a bit of a reference. Sometimes it's a comfort zone, but I don't put too much weight on it."