Volvo Ocean Race: The longest leg of all time

The upcoming edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will be one of the toughest yet due to its route design. New Managing Director Mark Turner announced the planned course of the race today in Alicante. Although there are nine legs, as in the previous edition, around 45,000 nautical miles have to be covered, around 6,000 more than in 2014/15.

One section in particular will be a tough one. From Alicante in Spain, the starting port and location of the race headquarters for the fourth time, the first leg will be a short one to Lisbon/Portugal. From there on to Cape Town/South Africa. So far, everything is normal.

Here it comes: From Cape Town, the race will sail through the Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea to Hong Kong, which means eastwards around Australia and far north again. At over 10,000 nautical miles, this will be one of the longest legs of the race so far.

From Hong Kong, the race then moves to Guangzhou in China, where an in-port race is held; this leg does not count towards the classification. Back in Hong Kong, the race heads to Auckland/New Zealand and then, as in the previous edition, around Cape Horn to Itajaj/Brazil and Newport/USA. Cardiff/United Kingdom is new to the stage plan. The penultimate stop is in Gothenburg, the finish in The Hague.

A total of around 12,500 nautical miles will have to be covered in the Southern Ocean, compared to around 4,500 nautical miles in the last edition.

Kiel, the state capital of Schleswig-Holstein, was also under discussion as a staging harbour. Mark Turner told YACHT online: "We discussed it, but Kiel cancelled the talks because other events were more important at the moment. Germany is still on our wish list, it has a great sailing culture and we would like to integrate it in the short or long term - into the event as a stage harbour or with a team."

Regarding the participating teams, Turner only said that he expects "there will be at least seven teams. We have seven boats in the water in Alicante from the last race." However, there are also serious talks about new boats, so there could ultimately be eight to nine teams.

TV documentary on the Volvo Ocean Race 2014/15