AMSTERDAM, June 2017 ~ For its 2017-18 contest, the Volvo Ocean Race will again rely on Mastervolt to provide power for the 8 VO-65 racers. Mastervolt systems will power anything from the large lifting keels to onboard AC and coffee makers.
Mastervolt, says Nick Bice, head of technical development at the VOR, is the “technical part of the boatyard and the Volvo Ocean Race.” The VOR boatyard is a large maintenance facility shared by all contestants who sail a one-design 65ft racer
“Mastervolt pretty much helped me to develop what I wanted a race supplier partnership to be,” he adds. “In the last race, they were onsite at every stopover.” Mastervolt technicians have assessed the performance of each power system and their components in the last race and made refinements to deliver dependable power at each extreme of temperature and humidity.
The new design lets the yachts benefit from Mastervolt’s latest product launches and its digital switching brand CZone. Though VOR systems are identical, crews can still determine the best way to use available power.
Mastervolt has added a Combination Output Interface (COI) from CZone to replace a traditional fuse box and feed more intelligence to the charging system. The CZone digital control & monitoring network simplifies installation of electrical systems by replacing cumbersome wiring to switch and fuse panels with state-of-the-art interfaces.
The NMEA cables have been swapped for higher capacity Ancor versions, and everything can now be monitored and controlled by the new CZone Touch 5 color screens. These bright, sunshine-viewable screens are also fully waterproof, and are WiFi enabled.
Mastervolt’s work in the VOR is analogous to consumer car owners benefiting from work done in Formula 1 racing. For the 2017-18 race, each VOR racer will have an additional water-spun charging system, and the output from this and all the other charging inputs can be viewed in real time on the Power Project monitoring page on the official Volvo website.
