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China's Volvo Ocean Race team hires Sanderson

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-17 15:39

BEIJING - China launched Team Sanya as its 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean Race entry Friday, with veteran sailor Mike Sanderson at its helm.

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The 40-year-old from New Zealand is a two-time winner of the race, which this year starts in October at Alicante, Spain, and will cover just under 40,000 nautical miles before finishing the following July at Galway, Ireland.

"We have an opportunity here to put China among the elite sailing nations," Sanderson said ahead of the Team Sanya boat launch in Beijing. "They tend not to do things by halves and there's now a huge wave of momentum in sailing here."

A joint Chinese-Irish entry, Green Dragon, contested the a previous edition of the 38-year-old race for monohulls in 2008-2009, but Team Sanya is chiefly backed by the Chinese government.

A Volvo Ocean Race boat typically costs well over $10 million for a campaign, although Team Sanya declined to disclose precise funding figures.

Sanderson said he will include around four Chinese sailors on a rotational basis in his 11-man crew.

"There's a major untapped potential in China," he said.

Sanderson faces competition from some of the sport's leading helmsmen in the upcoming race, including American Ken Read of German entry Puma and Frenchman Franck Cammas who helms his country's first entry in the race for 17 years on Groupama.

Sanderson won the 2005-2006 edition as helmsman of Dutch entry ABN Amro 1 and was named the 2006 World Sailor of the Year. From 2007 to 2010 he acted as team director for Team Origin, Britain's potential 2013 America's Cup challenger.