More than 200 representatives of ports and teams meet in Alicante six months before the start of the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15

Alicante, Spain.  April 2, 2014: Over 200 representatives flew from the 11 stopover cities of 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race route, as well as teams and sponsors, to attend the “Teams and Ports Conference”, taking place in Alicante, Spain.  Held from 1st until 4th April, the conference agendas focus on discussing the final preparations within the coming six months ahead of the round-the-world race this coming October.

CEO of Volvo Ocean Race Knut Frostad, opened the conference with an update on the latest race updates, and also highlighted the role of Alicante as a Start Port, presenting to an international audience from 15 countries, including Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing representatives.

“This year in October, Alicante will be once again prepared to host the best sailors of the world, as well as sponsors, international media, and thousands of visitors, officials and corporate guests who all will witness the take-off of this amazing human adventure.  We are dedicated to position this city as the international capital of sailing.” said Frostad.

Alicante, home of the organization of the Volvo Ocean Race since 2010, has hosted the start of the event for the past two seasons in 2008-09 and 2011-12.

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the economic impact was 110.63 million euros in Spain, of which 89.28 million were for Valencia, while the number of corporate guests was of 4,296 in addition to 711 accredited journalists from 44 nationalities.

Volvo Ocean Race Museum, also located in the Port of Alicante, has welcomed more than 20,000 visitors in the last six months.

The first in-port race will take place in Alicante on October 4th, then the fleet will leave for Cape Town (South Africa) on October 11th, racing the first leg of 38,739 nautical miles (71.745 kilometers) route that will stop in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Sanya (China) , Auckland (New Zealand), Itajai (Brazil), Newport (USA), Lisbon (Portugal), Lorient (France), The Hague (Netherlands) and Gothenburg (Sweden), where the competition will conclude with the final in-Port race taking place on 27 June 2015.

The twelfth edition will see teams racing with identical one-designs boats for the first time in its 40-year history, meaning that technology will no longer play a factor in the rivalry, and victory will belong to the most superior team.

"The 2014-15 will be the human edition; People, their ability to work together and make decisions, will play a very important role in their team’s victory. We will offer our fans stories, photos, videos and content of unprecedented quality across our multimedia platforms," said Frostad.

Five teams have confirmed their participation in the 2014-15 edition so far:  Team SCA (Sweden), Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (UAE), Dongfeng Race Team (China), Brunel Team (Netherlands) and Team Alvimedica (U.S. / Turkey).