British sailor Neal McDonald has a prestigious sailing CV with an Olympic Games, three America's Cups, three Whitbred and Volvo Ocean Races to his name. He also holds several successes in the Fastnet and Round Gotland Race, not to mention a victory in the international 14 world championships in 1989. For the Hamble based sailor this will be his fourth edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, most recently as skipper of Ericsson in 2005-06. Neal will be one of two watch-leaders onboard Green Dragon, he will sail alongside Ireland's Damian Foxall.

Anthony Merrington (Youngster) has 17 years of yacht racing experience under his belt, accumulating over 120,000 offshore nautical miles. He has competed in two edition of the Volvo Ocean Race; 2001-02 with Team SEB and 2004-05 with Pirates of the Carribbean. The Australian has also sailed as pitman with the Swedish America's Cup challenger, Victory Challenge, as well as several Sydney Hobart's. Anthony was a key part of Rosebud's winning Rolex Sydney to Hobart crew this year. He also sailed alongside McDonald aboard Ellen MacArthur's Kingfisher B&Q on their Jules Verne attempt.
 

The 450 mile sail to Ireland was the first offshore test for the new Volvo Open 70. "The boat has performed brilliantly", commented watch-leader Damian Foxall. "We were able to settle into our watch systems but we also took time to conduct several sail tests en route. We know what are the key decisions we are faced with on the sail program and we are taking every opportunity we have to learn fast in those areas".

The Green Dragon Team will be based in Ireland for the next two months; they will remain in Cork for the next three weeks before moving to their homeport of Galway. Upon leaving Galway the team will undertake their mandatory 2000 mile qualification passage.

The Green Dragon Team entry in the 2008/09 Volvo Ocean Race is jointly funded by two syndicates; a group of Irish private investment and a syndicate of Chinese companies.

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