Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018

It has been announced today that the 2017-18 13th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will stopover in Cardiff. To celebrate this exciting news here are 10 unmissable facts to impress your friends with about the world’s premier round-the-world sailing event. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​

• Cardiff’s stopover will be the first time the event has ever visited Wales and marks its return to the UK for the first time in over a decade.
• Covering a distance of almost 39,000 nautical miles, the race is expected to be divided into 9 legs.
• Cardiff will be the last leg of the transatlantic race, with boats heading to the Welsh Capital from Newport, Rhode Island USA.
• Other confirmed ports in the race include Alicante, Cape Town, Auckland, Newport (Rhode Island), Lisbon, Gothenburg
• The route the fleet will take includes crossing four oceans – the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian and Southern Oceans.
• Each leg will start and finish in leading cities around the world, known as Host Ports. Each Host Port stages a stopover festival of around two weeks.
• In each stopover, there will be an in-port race, which scores points for its own inshore series and acts as a tie breaker for the Volvo Ocean Race Trophy, as well as a series of pro-am races.
• The 2015-14 Volvo Ocean Race took 269 days – the length of the event from the opening in Alicante to the Awards Night in Gothenburg.
• Originally staged as the Whitbread Round the World Race, the event is now branded in the name of its current owner – Swedish car manufacturer, Volvo.
• The fleet of boats will have teams from all over the world. Each team usually has 8 sailors plus a multimedia reporter on board and 2 of the crew are trained medics.

The event is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors Cardiff and will be broadcast to a global audience. We can’t wait for it to sail into the city! ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​