I'm really looking forward to this race.  Last time you could log on to their website and race your virtual boat against theirs.  To be successful you had to interpret the weather and make adjustments to the course and rig.  It was very challenging and several of my friends took part and there were hundreds of others.  Downloading and processing the weather information took quite sometime and prompted a new, faster computer for me and now this time I also have broadband.  I can't wait. 

In addition there were some great photos of 60 foot boats surfing which became my PCs wallpaper for some time.

In fact the current Vendee Globe and the Ellen B&Q thing aren't half as exciting since they don't provide this feature on their website.

None for the number of boats coming to the startline, that's for sure. The budget for a VO campaign appears to be around 4 times that for Vendee or Ellen's big adventure. No way are they getting 4 times the exposure for their sponsors. It's wouldn't surprise me if this were the last VO race. I say that with regret, as I've been following the VO/Whitbread for 20+ years now.

Key Facts

What the race offers

Investing in the race

The Volvo Ocean Race is one of the most exciting and effective sports marketing opportunities available anywhere in the world. The event offers unique opportunities as a platform for delivering on a wide range of strategic business objectives whilst making real and measurable impact on the bottom line.

With a media strategy focused at the non-sailing audience and significant changes to the race format, the offering from the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006 will be stronger than ever before.

So the press release says the sponsors will get good value and it must be true because they say so? That's your argument?

I run a small company and get several calls a week from advertising space salesman who all tell me I will be rich if only I advertise with them. It's the same thing and it's just hype.

What actually really annoys me about the move to the VO70 is that it makes it completely impossible for a "budget entry" (a few million dollars - on the level of the Vendee). They have slammed the door on any new entrants to the event, like Matt Humphries a few years ago.

Cost escalation kills events and classes. Where are the Formula 40s, IOR 50s, Ultimate 30s? We never seem to learn. 

hello i was wondering how do get onto one of the crews for the VOR??????????????

Do you need any qualifications

With extreme difficulty. I believe ABN Amro are doing crew trials - google around. But really if you don't have experience of this kind of sailing, forget it.

I will make a positive suggestion though. If you are interested in trying ocean racing, register yourself on the RORC crew list. If you have a reasonable dinghy racing CV you are quite likely to get a few phone calls. 

Check out the latest VO70 at

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/pages/news/news124.htm - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/pages/news/news124.htm

That is going to be some boat.

Here's the home page.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/index.htm - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/index.htm

Currently this is what I have on TV coverage:

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=19322 - http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=19322

Should be good as they've really wired up the boats.

BTW: We're still struggling with the speed of the forum at the moment - my apologies as at the moment I really can't work out what it is... I think we're going to have to do yet another server upgrade over the winter. Something to do with 330,000 unique users on the Y&Y site and 240,000 on the Boards site...

The link is on this page as "The Volvo Online Race".

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/raceguide/ - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/raceguide/

Thanks for the link Hector.  I tried it but its not the same sort of thing at all.  I'm really disappointed there's no virtual race it had me gripped last time and I was logging on several times a day.  Now I keep up to date but it leaves me cold.  Vitual Spectator is a great programme but not so appropriate for this race as say the Americas Cup.  Also the races are too short, 3 weeks to get from one port to the next is not ocean racing as it used to be - following Ellen was much more fun.

And what about the in-port races, there are a few short streaming video's which don't work very well and a few photos, but I haven't seen the results.  No I take that back I've found them at http://www.volvooceanrace.org/racedatacentre/pointstable/ - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/racedatacentre/pointstable/

but what happened?  Its not nearly as exciting as last time and the website is not nearly as useful as last time.  Perhaps it'll get better as it progresses.  Perhaps its been dumbed down?  What do other people think?

The latest news from the Southern Ocean is disturbing.

See http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=20126 - http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=20126

This sort of thing should not happen in the Southern Ocean, could it be that someone has got their figures wrong? Pushed the limits too far.

This is playing with peoples lives and could end up with some very bad publicity for Volvo and the other sponsors.

They are all professional racing sailors and fully capable of making their own risk/reward decisions.

Virtual skipper is

http://content.volvooceanrace.org/VS/ViewerDownload/Volvo2005Setup1_0_5_0.exe - http://content.volvooceanrace.org/VS/ViewerDownload/Volvo200 5Setup1_0_5_0.exe

That's not what Bob Fisher says in the latest Y&Y. He reckons only 3 boats will sail round Cape Horn.

Lets see if it is the sponsors like the decision made by Neal MacDonald to retire from the latest leg.

Exactly.  If they cannot sail their boats properly, they did not prepare properly.