Latest Volvo Ocean Race news

For the first official reunion, veteran boats and sailors are to gather in Alicante for a race of the legends. Professional skippers, owners and crew of the boats which made the planet their racetrack are invited to sail once again to a round the world race village.

The course and dates for the Volvo Ocean Race 2011–12 have been officially announced today. This edition of the race will see a new format for the racing programme in the host cities, including the start city of Alicante, Spain and finish city of Galway, Ireland. For the first time, the Volvo Ocean Race will finish with an In-Port race in Galway.

Camper, the Spanish-based inter-national footwear brand, announced today that it will compete in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2011-2012. The campaign will be run by Emirates Team New Zealand.

Puma announced it will participate in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 after finishing second overall in the 2008-09 race, which ended in June 2009. The Puma Ocean Racing team will once again be under the leadership of skipper Ken Read.

Auckland, New Zealand, is back in the Volvo Ocean Race after a gap of 10 years. The city, which has fielded some of the world’s best sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race, last hosted the event in 2001–02. It will stage the leg four finish from Sanya in China and the start of leg five, which will take the fleet into the Southern Ocean once again, round the infamous Cape Horn and up to a finish in Itajai, Brazil.

Miami, Florida, will host the start of the transatlantic leg to Lisbon, Portugal, for the Volvo Ocean Race 2011–12. Florida has a long association with the event, as this will be the fifth time the sunshine state has welcomed the world’s premier offshore race.

The city of Itajaí, in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina, will be the South American stopover for the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race. This is the first time that the port of Itajaí will play host to the event, which has visited Brazil on six prior occasions.

Sanya, the southernmost city on the golden coast of Hainan Province, China, has won the bid to host the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12. Building on the success of the Qingdao stopover during the 2008-09 event, the resort city of Sanya will be the finish of leg three, which starts from Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, will become a host port for the 2010-2012 Volvo Ocean Race. A racing team from Abu Dhabi will also take its place on the start line of the race in Alicante, Spain in the autumn of next year.

Following the huge success in Galway when it was the finish of the transatlantic leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09, Ireland, will again feature in the new route for 2011–12. The fleet will race from Lorient in France back to Galway on Ireland’s west coast.