After five years since the Volvo Ocean Race fleet left the port of Alicante for the last time, the engines are already heating up to organize what will be the fourteenth edition of the round the world sailing tour, now called The Ocean Race.
An edition that will inaugurate a new cycle, breaking the molds of what we were used to until now. To begin with, it will be the first time that so many years have elapsed between one edition and another, since its beginnings in 1973 when it was the «Whitbread Round the World Race» and the Mexican Ramón Carlin, together with his crew, will win the title. .
With its last edition in 2017-2018, in which it won the Dongfeng sponsored by
Englishman Charles Caudrelier, Volvo has ceased to be a “naming”, leaving the organizational chart of this ocean race and giving prominence to its new owners, the company The Ocean Race 1973 directed by Brisius Richard.
It will also be the sixth time that the regatta has departed from Spain and the first time that it has departed and arrived in the Mediterranean. One of the riskiest bets to be able to decaffeinate two of the most decisive moments of a trip around the world, if the Mare Nostrum is shown as a raft of oil, especially during the month of January in Alicante. Other interesting data is that it will be the first to be done with a boat with foils and that for the second time two classes will coexist in the regatta (Imoca 60 and VO65) after doing so in the 93-94 edition with the maxi and the Whitbread 60 ( W60), where Spain participated with Galicia 93 Pescanova of Javier de la Gándara, Roberto «Chuny» Bermúdez, one of the great oceanic assets of new countries among others, including Jaime Arbones, among other great sailors from new countries.
Returning to the present, after four editions in Alicante it would be magnificent to see a regatta that is more united with the city, where the people of Alicante feel the regatta is their own and not like an event held in the port and that they visit like someone who spent an afternoon in the shopping center . It would be great to have them become ambassadors for The Ocean Race, which along with the America's Cup and the Vendee Globe is the world's most important sailing-related nautical event.
Except for Southampton, which has had the privilege of hosting this hanging regatta for seven editions, Alicante is the true port of departure for the sailing round the world, adding to these five consecutive editions.
Alicante has already put the machinery in motion by putting out the first public tenders. Experience is treasured and new airs are breathed. It is time to achieve those goals set for previous editions.
