The picturesque Spanish port city of Alicante recently played host to the 13th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), considered by many as the planet’s most gruelling and longest professional sporting event.
Alicante is one amongst the 12 ports located over 6 continents that the 7 participating yachts will cover while racing each other over 45,000 nautical miles across 4 oceans over 8 months, before finally concluding in The Hague in June 2018.
The Volvo Ocean Race follows the format of One Design racing that means all yachts are identical in design, with each team being entirely at par, in terms of equipment, race, route and weather information as well as technology.
This essentially translates into the team with the strongest skill sets, using every minor detail to their advantage emerging victorious, with the benevolence of Poseidon, of course.
Each yacht holds a team of between 8 to 11 sailors, with the new addition of an Onboard Reporter, whose singular role is to provide VOR’s 1.5 billion strong community of followers and fans an in-depth perspective of the constant challenges faced by each team in their pursuit of victory.
Keeping the community’s access to live information at the fore, Volvo Ocean Race has appointed HCl as a strategic IT services provider, that has in turn installed over 1,300 products and systems at the 12 Volvo Ocean Race Villages to ensure that the community following the event across various digital & social media platforms as well as the expected 3 million plus visitors at the Race Villages are able to get closer to the action than ever before.