Team Seacats

It’s that time again – time for another run of one of the most dramatic world-wide ocean races…ever.  The Volvo Ocean Race.  They start with an in-port race in Alicante, Spain on October 4th and start the first ocean leg of the race one week later.  10 Ocean Legs and 6 more in-port races later, the teams (probably not all of them) will finish their Journey in St. Petersburg, Russia sometime in June / July 2009.  Eight teams will be competing in this year’s event on newly designed 70′ monohull reaching rockets with canting keels.  These boats are heavily optimized for deep reaching in heavy and big seas and achieve speeds previously thought to have only been capable in large multihulls.  The last event’s specifically designed 60′ boats had multiple structural failures of their canting keel systems resulting in the complete loss of one vessel at sea (the sailors were rescued) and multiple boats having to head to a safe port for repairs.  Tragically Hans Horrevoets, 32 years of age from the Netherlands, died in the last event when he was washed overboard in the North Atlantic while the crew was performing a gear change due to a change in the weather.  The team managed to find Hans but he had already fallen victim to the cold waters of the Atlantic in only a short period.  This will surely be a race to watch (www.volvooceanrace.org) and it’s SO big, we sometimes even can see some television coverage of it here in the US.