Volvo Ocean Race update

Talking to the CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race 20 or so months out from the start of the next race is always a somewhat futile exercise. At this point they have a good idea of the route, but can’t confirm it and they have a good idea of the teams involved which again they can’t talk about until the teams themselves are ready. So the first leg of the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race has been announced from Alicante to Cape Town – which comes as no great surprise. Knut Frostad says that they did look at some alternates in Africa and had some interesting options, but it was a little bit early to go elsewhere. And...that’s it at the moment. We don’t even have a start date, other than ‘August to October’ 2011. All this is likely to change over the next weeks as further announcements over the route and stopover ports are drip fed out with the complete route known by the end of March. This schedule of announcements is significantly earlier than the last race when the route wasn’t finalised until just a few months out from the start, points out Frostad. This has come about due to the significant difference this time round in how Frostad and his team are choosing the ports. Under the Glenn Bourke regime the plan was for teams to come forward and then in an exercise in supporting them, the Volvo Ocean Race would visit their country. This is no longer the case, as Frostad explains: “When I did my first races in 1993 and 1997, there was never a discussion of ‘if you had a team, you would get a stopover’. And I think it was good that way. Then the race evolves around cities that really want the race and you can create