The race dates back to 1973 when it was known as the Whitbread Round the World race. The first edition started from Portsmouth in the United Kingdom on September 8, 1973. The 2011-12 race is the 11th edition of the race. It starts in Alicante, Spain on October 29 and finishes in July 2012 in Galway, Ireland.

The Volvo Ocean Race headquarters in Alicante contain a state-of-the-art Race Control Centre from which yachts are continuously tracked around the world using satellite communications.

The Volvo Ocean Race Museum has been created to perpetuate the legacy of the race and to chronicle the heroic achievements of the competing sailors. This spectacular educational facility located in Alicante features interactive zones focusing on science and technology, maritime traditions, geography and meteorology, oceans and wildlife as well as climate change and sustainability.

La rotta

–          La lunghezza totale della rotta è di 39.270 miglia (72.728 chilometri) l’equivalente di cinque viaggi andata e ritorno da Alicante a Miami.

–          The longest leg is Leg 5 from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajaí, Brazil – 6,705 nautical miles (12,418 kms) or the equivalent of travelling from Southampton, UK to Alicante, Spain nine times.

–          The shortest leg is Leg 9 from Lorient, France to Galway, Ireland – 485 nautical miles (898 kms) or the equivalent of 185,659 Volvo Ocean Race Edition XC70 cars placed end to end.

–          The competing sailors spend up to 25 days at sea between ports and take only one change of clothes.

–          All 10 of the ports will host one in-port race apiece.

–          The race crosses four oceans: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and the Southern Ocean.

–          The race visits five continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.

–          The race stops in 10 countries: Spain, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, China, New Zealand, Brazil, United States, Portugal, France and Ireland.

–          Over the race the sailors can expect temperatures ranging between -12º C and +50º C.

–          During the race the yachts must avoid a wide range of water borne obstacles including a variety of ocean debris, icebergs, whales and other marine life.

–          The crews must cope with winds ranging from zero knots in the Doldrums to as much as 70 knots (hurricane force) in the Southern Ocean.

I record

The winning boat in the 2008-09 race, Ericsson 4, skippered by Torben Grael of Brazil, completed the course in a total of 127 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes and 17 seconds.

Ericsson 4 broke the World Sailing Speed Record for the greatest distance covered by a monohull in a single a 24-hour period. On Leg 1 from Alicante to Cape Town, the team sailed 596.6 nautical miles (1104.9 km) in 1 day, at an average speed of 24.85 knots (46.02 kilometres per hour). 

The previous 24-hour monohull distance record was set by ABN AMRO TWO, skippered by Sebastien Josse (FRA) in the 2005-06 race. They covered 562.96 nautical miles (1043 kilometres) during Leg 2 between Cape Town and Melbourne at an average speed of 23.46 knots (43.44 kilometres per hour).

The winning boat in the 2005-06 race, ABN AMRO ONE skippered by Mike Sanderson (NZL) covered 30,000 miles in 2339 hours at an average speed of 12.83 knots (23.76 kilometres per hour). The boat’s elapsed time was 97 days 11 hours 15 minutes and 39 seconds.

The Whitbread 60, Volvo Ocean 60 and Volvo Open 70 yachts which have broken the World Sailing Speed Record for the maximum distance covered by a monohull within a 24-hour period in previous editions of the Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Race are:

–                      1994 Intrum Justitia, 64ft, Lawrie Smith (GBR) – 428 nautical miles at an average of 17.83 knots

–                      1997 Toshiba 64ft, Dennis Connor (USA) – 434.4 nautical miles at an average of 18.1 Knots

–                      1997 Silk Cut, 64ft, Lawrie Smith (GBR) – 449.1 nautical miles at an average of 18.71 knots

–                      2002 Illbruck, 64ft, John Kostecki (USA) – 484 nautical miles at an average of 20.16 knots

–                      2005 Movistar 70ft, Bouwe Bekking (NED) – 530.19 nautical miles at an average of 22.09 knots

–                      2005 ABN AMRO ONE, 70ft, Mike Sanderson (NZL) – 546.14 nautical miles at an average of 22.75 knots

–                      2006 ABN AMRO TWO, 70ft, Sébastien Josse (FRA) – 562.96 nautical miles at an average of 23.45 knots

–                      2008 Ericsson 4 70ft, Torben Grael (BRA) – 596.6 nautical miles at an average of 24.85 knots

Le sedi di tappa

The race features stopovers in 10 ports: Alicante, Spain (Start); Cape Town, South Africa; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Sanya, China; Auckland, New Zealand; Itajaí, Brazil; Miami, USA; Lisbon, Portugal; Lorient, France; Galway, Ireland (Finish).

The first step of the Alicante’s Town Hall’s staircase is the reference point or “Cota Cero” from which the height of any place above sea level in Spain is measured. Alicante was called “Lucentum” by the Romans, meaning “City of Light”.

Cape Town has its own constellation: Mons Mensa, meaning “Table Mountain”. The constellation was named by French astronomer, Abbe Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the early 1750s.

Every day (except Sundays) since 1806, Cape Town’s Noon Day Gun on Signal Hill (close to the city centre) has been fired to signal midday.

Abu Dhabi or ‘Father of the Gazelle’ in Arabic, comes from the Bani Yas tribe hunters who discovered the island when tracking a gazelle who led them to a freshwater spring.

Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is one the world’s largest mosques and has a capacity for 40,000 worshippers. This amazing building features 80 domes, around 1,000 columns, has 24-carat gold-plated chandeliers and contains the world’s largest hand-woven carpet.

People in Sanya enjoy an average life span of 80 years, the longest in China.

Sanya is located on the tip of Hainan Island off the Chinese coast and is on the same line of latitude as Hawaii.

Auckland, known as the ‘City of Sails’, is said to have the highest boat ownership per capita in the world. 

At 328 metres, Auckland’s Sky Tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere.

Warung Beach Club in Itajaí was elected three times one of the best places to dance in the world.

Itajaí’s Marejada festival is a Portuguese celebration of fishing and seafood and showcases the oceans and the Azores. The last edition in 2010 attracted 104,522 visitors.

Miami is home to 150+ ethnicities and 60+ languages.

Vice City, the fictional metropolis featured in the “Grand Theft Auto” video game, is based on Miami.

Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon are monuments classified as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Hidden beneath the streets of Lisbon’s downtown shopping area are Roman galleries, chambers, bridges and corridors. The ancient remains are open to the public on only two days each year.

Every year, Lorient hosts the biggest world reunion of Celtic cultures during the Festival Interceltique, bringing together 700,000 visitors and 4,500 artists.

The first non-stop transatlantic flight landed in Clifden Co Galway in 1919

In 1477, on his way to discover the new world, Christopher Columbus stopped over in Galway with a fleet of ships and was given a blessing in St. Nicholas’s Church.

I Race Village

The Volvo Ocean Race attracts huge local attention at each of the Host Ports with the Race Villages drawing in large numbers of visitors.

A total of 3.9 million spectators visited the Race Villages during the 2008-09 race. That’s an average of 24,399 spectators per day and an increase of 35% on the 2.8 million visitors to the Host Ports of the 2005-06 race.

For the 2008-09 race the top five stopovers in terms of visitor numbers were:

Alicante, Spain: 937,000

Cochin, India: 811,677

Stockholm, Sweden: 737,000

Galway, Ireland: 420,000

Qingdao, China: 363,700

The peak visitor numbers on a single day during the 2008-09 race was in Stockholm, Sweden when 160,000 people visited the Race Village.

La logistica

Running a race around the world is a huge logistical challenge. The massive amount of race management equipment required to run the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 is shipped around the globe in 400 twenty-foot containers.

To allow enough time for setup at each Host Port the kit is mirrored, with two identical consignments travelling over two discrete routes, leapfrogging each other around the world:

Route 1 takes in Alicante (Spain), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Auckland (New Zealand), Miami (USA), Lorient (France).

Route 2 stops at Cape Town (South Africa), Sanya (China), Itajaí (Brazil), Lisbon (Portugal), Galway (Ireland).

Since the race travels around the world at such high speed, on some parts of the route standard commercial shipping services are not quick enough so a private ship is chartered specifically for the Volvo Ocean Race containers.

High value equipment such as TV broadcast and IT infrastructure equipment is shipped by air to every stopover.

I numeri della regata

An entourage of around 1,000 people and masses of equipment travels ahead of the race as it makes its way around the world, comprising race management personnel, journalists and news crews, guests, sponsors, sailors’ families, additional boats, spare parts, logistical teams and shore crews.

Volvo Ocean Race stopover personnel breakdown:

Stopover organisation: 15-20

Stopover volunteers: 250

On water operations: 10

On water volunteers: 150

Event agency staff: 30

Builders: 100

Entertainment staff: 20

Pavilion staff: 100

Local port exhibitions: 50-100

Team staff ex-sailors: 150

Sailors: 80

Le immagini

Each boat has approximately six cameras on board:

    Four fixed on-deck cameras which can rotate through 360 degrees to view the entire boat

    Two handheld cameras (with the option for more)

The operation of all the cameras is the responsibility of the onboard Media Crew Member.

Come mi vesto?

The minimum safety equipment requirements on the boats are:

Life jackets, safety harnesses, constant wear survival suits, anchors, cables, boat righting instructions, buckets, paper charts, compasses, Cyalume light sticks, two hand desalination units (one must be capable of desalinating 100 litres of water per day and the other 20 litres per day). Echo sounder, 50 litres of emergency drinking water, three fire extinguishers, flashlights, watertight flashlights, high intensity strobe light, fuel, full foul weather clothing with hoods, GPS, buoyant grab bags, heaving line, knives, life raft documentation, marine grade retro-reflective material, name of the boat on miscellaneous buoyant equipment, reserve navigation lights, radar, radar reflector, sextant, soft wood plugs, speedometer, stowage chart, tools and spare parts, emergency hydraulic oil and an active radar transponder.

A ‘Swimmer Of The Watch’ bag (bag stored ready for immediate use within reach of the main companionway hatch to facilitate the recovery of a man overboard by a swimmer of the watch and containing at least 50 metres of buoyant 8-millimetre rope, swim fins, a semi-automatic life jacket, and enough suitable clothing to carry out a man overboard recovery in cold water),

Plus: Sewing machine, food and drink, sails, electronics, personal items.

L’equipaggio

The crew of a Volvo Ocean 70 is made up of 11 people.

At least three crewmembers on each boat (not including the Media Crew Member) must be under the age of 30 (born on or after 1 September 1980).

Two crewmembers on each boat must go through detailed medical training, and all the sailors have to attend first aid and safety training.

All crewmembers must take medical and dental examinations no more than six months before the start of the race.

There are a wide variety of roles on the boat including, skipper, navigator helmsman, sail trimmer, bowman, watch leader, sailmaker, engineer, cook.

Typically an individual sailor will be able to carry out almost all of the roles but will be a specialist in two or three.

Every crew includes a dedicated Media Crew Member (MCM) who is not a part of the sailing team and whose role is to capture all of the action and drama.

For in-port and pro-am racing, a minimum of five and a maximum of seven crewmembers are allowed to race the boat, with the other roles being carried out by the guests.

Cosa fa un MCM

–            Shoot videos and take pictures of all the action onboard.

–            Write daily blogs telling the story of what is going on aboard the boat.

–            Cook, wash, bail out water and move equipment.

–            Handle communications with external medical advisors and follow up reports to external care givers.

–            Make water and charge batteries.

–            Help out with non-sailing activities e.g. handing out sunglasses, wet weather gear, drinks etc.

MCMs are specifically not allowed to:

–            (On deck) Helm, trim, grind, do any foredeck work whatsoever, stack sails or other equipment, retrieve, fold or handle sails in any way.

–            (Below deck) stack sails or other non-media equipment, help with or repair sails, engine and electrical items, perform medical duties (except in extreme emergency). Substitute or assist in navigation and position reporting.

La vita a bordo

Whilst racing, the sailors’ lives are based around four-hour cycles known as watch systems.

A typical cycle for an individual sailor could be:

4 hours on duty,

4 hours standby,

4 hours sleep or rest. 

At any time, however, major manoeuvres like sail changes, tacking or gybing could require the entire crew on deck to help out.

Every day a crewmember climbs the mast to check for wear and tear.

Sailors only take one change of clothes for an entire leg.

Il cibo

There are no official restrictions regarding food, except for the emergency food and fluids that must be carried by each boat.

The sailors race the boats around the clock and burn an enormous amount of energy every day.

To refuel their bodies they each need to take on a massive 5,000 calories a day – that’s double the daily average calorie intake for a man.

Some crewmembers consume more than 20 vitamin pills each day in an effort to maintain a sound level of health.

Sailors in previous races have reported losing up to 25 pounds (11 kg) just on one leg of the course.

The crews calculate how much food to take on each leg based on energy consumption equations and the leg length.

Freeze-dried food makes up the bulk of the food supplies, as it is light to pack and only requires rehydration with desalinated seawater. A limited range of freeze-dried food (usually pasta) can be cooked in salt water. 

There are no luxury food items, but nowadays quite elaborate meals can be prepared with freeze-dried food. Even curry dishes or lamb in mint sauce is feasible. These are not as succulent as the real thing but are better than plain freeze-dried vegetables.

The sailors will consume up to eight snacks over a 24-hour period.

Food is stored on the boat in bags that are moved around as ballast to assist with the trim of the boat.

L’acqua

Fresh water is a precious commodity on board a Volvo Open 70 so no water is allocated for showering.

Drinking water is made onboard with a desalinator, which uses the process of osmosis to remove the salt from seawater. 

Crews need to produce 50 litres of desalinated water each day for cooking and drinking.

Il Volvo Ocean Race Trophy

Constructed by by Spanish company Proximma Communicación, this beautifully designed trophy reflects the glory of winning one of the most extreme challenges in sport.

Made from aluminium and silver plate, the trophy comprises 11 wave-shaped rings that represent the 11 editions of the race.

The trophy stands 70 centimetres high and weighs nine kilogrammes.

Ten rings are each engraved with the year, route and name of the winning boat and skipper from previous races. A new ring will be added for each future edition of the race.

Next July the 11th ring will be engraved in Galway with the winner of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12.

Il sistema di punteggio

The Volvo Ocean Race consists of nine offshore legs and 10 in-port races. The offshore legs are weighted to be worth five times more than the in-port races.

Offshore legs:          

1st: 30 points

2nd: 25

3rd: 20

4th: 15

5th: 10

6th: 5

In-port races:

1st: 6 points

2nd: 5

3rd: 4

4th: 3

5th: 2

6th: 1

The overall winner will be the team with the highest number of points at the end of the race. 

Gli albatross 

The Wandering Albatross and the Southern Royal Albatross are the largest of the albatrosses and are amongst the largest flying birds on the planet.

The albatross has a wingspan of 3.5 metres (11ft).

The albatross can weigh up to 10kg (25lbs).

Albatrosses can fly hours without flapping their wings (dynamic soaring). The soaring requires less energy than sitting on a nest.

Albatrosses can fly thousands of miles without touching land. They only land when they need to nest and raise their offspring.

Adult albatrosses can only produce, at best, one chick every two years.

The parent albatross can fly back and forth, making trips of up to 10 thousand kilometres (6,250 miles), to bring food back to their chick during its first year of life.

When the chick is mature enough, it leaves the nest (fledge) to cruise the Southern Ocean and does not return to land for many years. When the parent albatross returns, the chick is no longer there.

Albatrosses pair for life. If their partner is killed, it can take many years to find a new one or they might not find one at all.

The albatross can live up to 60 years or more.

Albatrosses may not start breeding until they are 10 years old.

Of the 21 species of albatrosses recognised by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), 19 are threatened with extinction. The albatross can’t reproduce fast enough to make up the numbers lost.

Facts and Figures

The Volvo Ocean Race is the most
prestigious round the world yacht race and the world’s longest continuous
professional sporting event, lasting over eight months from October to July. The
2011-12 edition starts in Spain and visits South Africa, the United Arab
Emirates, China, New Zealand, Brazil, the United States, Portugal, France and
Ireland.