What is The Ocean Race?
Since 1973, The Ocean Race has provided the ultimate test of a team and a human adventure like no other. For nearly 50 years, it has kept an almost mythical hold over some of the greatest sailors and been the proving ground for the legends of our sport.
The Ocean Race is often described as the longest and toughest professional sporting event in the world, sailing’s toughest team challenge and one of the sport’s Big Three events, alongside the Olympic Games and America’s Cup.
To truly understand the race, though, it’s better to think of it in a way the athletes who take part will recognise immediately. Put simply, The Ocean Race is an obsession, and many of the world's best sailors have dedicated years, even decades of their lives trying to win it.
Take Sir Peter Blake, who competed in the first edition of what was then the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973-74 and came back again and again until he finally conquered his Everest, securing an overwhelming victory with Steinlager 2 in 1989-90. Only then was he able to fully turn his attention to other projects.
The race sits, just as it always has, at the intersection of human adventure, and world-class competition. Thanks to the work of the Onboard Reporters embedded with every team, fans are given a unique insight into just what it takes to win a race that is relentless in its demands – as teams give everything they have, 24 hours a day, in pursuit of the tiny advantages that can make all the difference.
The race’s concept is simple: it’s a round-the-clock pursuit of competitive edge and the ultimate ocean marathon, pitting the sport’s best sailors against each other across the world’s toughest waters. It’s relentless: the importance of winning, the adventure of life on board, the transformative effect on the sailors — all of these combine to give the race its power and depth.
The last edition of the race was the closest in history, with three teams virtually tied, approaching the finish line. After 126 days of racing spread across 11 legs, the winning margin for Charles Caudrelier’s Dongfeng Race Team was only 16 minutes. The top three teams were separated by just four points.
A total of 2.5 million people visited the Race Villages during the 2017-18 event, getting a first-hand taste of the action. Millions more followed the action on our digital platforms, television and via the news as the race set new high-marks for international coverage.
Now we enter a new era as the event continues to evolve. Two classes will compete in the 2022-23 edition of the race with the addition of the high-tech, foiling IMOCA 60 class adding a design and technical element. The one-design VO65 fleet will race for The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup over three legs: Leg 1 from Alicante, Spain to Cabo Verde, Leg 6 from Aarhus, Denmark to The Hague in the Netherlands, and Leg 7 from The Hague to Genova, Italy.
Following the success of our ground-breaking and award-winning sustainability efforts in the last race, sustainability will continue to be a core value of the race as we go forward, as we redouble our efforts to restore ocean health and lead, inspire and engage on this critical issue.
The 14th edition of The Ocean Race started from Alicante, Spain on January 15th 2023, and will finish in Genova, the Grand Finale, in Italy early in the summer of 2023. The race visits nine iconic cities around the globe over a six-month period (Alicante, Spain - Cabo Verde - Cape Town, South Africa - Itajaí, Brazil - Newport, RI, USA - Aarhus, Denmark - Kiel Fly-By, Germany - The Hague, the Netherlands - Genova, Italy) and features a leg with the longest racing distance in the 50-year history of the event - a 12,750 nautical mile, one-month marathon from Cape Town, South Africa to Itajaí, Brazil. The IMOCA fleet of mixed crews will pass all three great southern Capes - Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, Cape Horn - non-stop, for the first time.
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How the race is won
Although at its most fundamental level the perfect strategy for winning The Ocean Race comes down to simply scoring more points than your competitors, there is much more involved in emerging victorious from a five-month, 32,000-nautical mile (36,825-mile / 60,000-kilometre) race around the world.
The Ocean Race uses a high points scoring system with the winning team on an offshore leg awarded points equal to the number of entries in the race. Second place gets points equal to the number of entries minus one – and so on down the finishing order.
However, double points are up for grabs on two of the legs: the monster 12,750-nautical mile (14,672-mile / 23,613-kilometre) Southern Ocean passage on Leg 3 from Cape Town, South Africa to Itajaí in Brazil – the longest in the race’s 50-year history – and the transatlantic crossing on Leg 5 from US city Newport, Rhode Island to Aarhus in Denmark.
The points on Leg 3 will be split between the order in which the teams pass the longitude of 143 degrees east – and their finishing order at the end of the leg. On Leg 5 the points will be doubled based on the teams’ finishing order on the 3,500-nautical mile (4,028-mile / 6,482-kilometre) transatlantic crossing.
With the rules dictating that teams which fail to finish a leg shall receive no points, the crews will need to manage their instinct to push their boats and themselves flat out with the need to avoid sustaining damage that might slow them down or even force them to retire.
As well as avoiding damage the sailors need to avoid incurring penalty points that can be awarded for any transgressions to the race’s rules, such as entering race imposed exclusion zones, measurement violations, and anything else deemed to be a breach of the regulations.
The final standings at the end of the race are determined based on the teams’ total score for all of the legs – less any penalty points. The team with the highest series score wins with others ranked accordingly. Ties on overall points are throughout the race broken in favour of the boat with the highest overall position in the In-Port Series.
In The Ocean Race 2017-18 after racing for eight months around the world the top three teams were so close on points starting the final leg from Gothenburg, Sweden to The Hague in the Netherlands that the eventual winner – China’s Dongfeng Race Team – was not decided until the last few miles to the finish line.