The Volvo Ocean Race

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 begins on the 4th October 2008 with an in-port race in the Spanish port of Alicante, before the fleet heads off into the Atlantic on a 6,500 nautical mile leg to Cape Town. The longest leg in the race is the daunting fifth leg from the Chinese port of Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro.  Not only is it 12,300 nautical miles in length, the leg includes both an equator crossing and the rounding of the notorious Cape Horn.

 

The seventh leg of the race is from the American city of Boston to the Irish city of Galway arriving on the 23rd May 2009. With both cities and countries sharing a great historic connection this is sure to add to the excitement of this leg. The race will finish in Russia’s second largest city, St Petersburg on 27 June 2009 following a short dash across the Baltic Sea from Stockholm.

 

 

*indicates stopover port featuring in-port racing.   

 

Scoring

The winner of the Volvo Ocean Race is the team with the most points after ten completed legs. Teams are awarded points for each of the ten legs of the race according to their finishing ranking on each leg.  The individual legs are the major point-scoring opportunities in the race. In addition, teams can boost their points tallies through minor point-scoring opportunities. These opportunities occur at scoring gates and in-port races. Scoring gates are midpoints occurring on each of the longest legs of the race. In-Port races take place within seven of the race’s stopover ports, creating close-knit fleet racing and giving the public and invited guests an opportunity to marvel at these magnificent boats up close.

 

History

Founded in 1973 as the Whitbread Round the World Race, the complexion of the Volvo Ocean Race has changed hugely throughout its 35 year history. Initially pitting mostly amateur crews against each other in an odd mix of boat types, the race previously used a complicated handicapping system to generate its winner.  This often had the effect that a boat which might complete a race days after the apparent winner, would be declared winner. Since the 1997-98 race, the competitors have been bound to a single boat class, initially the Volvo 60 and now, for only the second time, the thrilling Volvo Open 70 class.

 

An additional innovation of recent editions has been the addition of both short legs and in-port racing.  As well as testing the all round skill of crews, these innovations together with points scoring have negated the negative effect of gear failure or bad luck on the race’s outcome. Winning skippers of the Volvo Ocean Race include illustrious names such as Sir Peter Blake, Paul Cayard, Grant Dalton and John Kostecki. ABN AMRO One, Illbruck Challenge, EF Language and NZ Endeavour are past winners of the VOR. Historically the race has taken place on a four year cycle.  Following the 2008-09 race, the Volvo Ocean Race is scheduled to take place every three years.