Tonight Team Telefonica arrived first in Cape Town with 40 knots of gusting winds pushing their Volvo Open 70 boat into port. What an amazing race!

I find sailing to be a big source of inspiration and am thinking about picking it up myself as a hobby, though with nothing near a Volvo Open 70!

I have been following the Volvo Ocean Race the last month and what a competition. Amazing teams go up against natures wildness in an effort to go around the earth as fast as possible. Three boats have either had their masts smashed to pieces or suffered huge hull damage, which is the case of Team Sanya. This is a though race. Over the years five people have lost their lives during racing. Ocean racing is a dangerous sport.

After reading in the Norwegian sailing magazine Seilas (no. 9, 2011) that norwegian navigator Aksel Magdahl is participating with Team Sanya I guess nationalism gives me a team to support. I just hope their hull will be good as new and ready for the next in-port race in Cape Town and the second leg to Abu Dhabi, which will be more of a sprint into Abu Dhabi due to the pirate threat off the African coast. Looking forward to the start on december 11th!

In Seilas they also stated that Stavanger is interested in applying to be a Volvo Ocean Race port in 2018. To succeed they would probably also have to put together a participating team since cities that participate with a boat is much more likely to be chosen. Now THAT would be exciting… Check out the article which contains more info.

You can follow the race at the official website and even create your own boat and join the fun in the Volvo Ocean Race Game!

On a side note; I would love to learn more about the actual boat technology. Wonder where information about this can be found, if it is not guarded as trade secrets.