Country: Australia
Skipper: Grant Wharington
Navigator: To be announced
Designer: Don Jones
Builder: Hart Marine
Launch Date: May 2005

The big question surrounding Grant Wharington's Premier Challenge team is whether the boat and crew will be on the start line when the gun fires on 5 November. Wharington committed to building a Volvo 70 before his Premier Racing team had raised commercial finance and with just 58 days to go to the start of the race in Europe, the Don Jones design was still sailing in Australia.

Wharington, (Left) an Australian property developer, was already owner of a 100-foot Maxi Skandia (Wild Thing) designed by Jones - with input from Wharington - as a precursor to the Volvo 70 design. The Volvo 70 design is clearly far more influenced by the short-handed Open 60 style of boat typified by entries in the Vendée Globe than the rest of the boats in the Volvo fleet that look more like turbo-charged Volvo 60s.

Grant Wharington's crew - which is a home-grown group of Australians that include ex-Kvaerner and News Corp helmsman Ian 'Barney' Walker and Olympic Laser sailor Michael Blackburn - will not be short of match practice if their boat is shipped to Europe in time to start: Skandia has been active on the global racing circuit for the last couple of years. But designer Don Jones has yet to prove himself in this arena and the lack of a secure financial platform and hard miles on the water could prove to be the limiting factors.