First Team to be announced for 2021
The Mirpuri Foundation Racing team was the first team to be announced for the next edition of The Ocean Race, in a live interview on an online launch event hosted March 2019 in Alicante, Spain.
The Mirpuri Foundation learned a lot from its participation in the last Race. One of the lessons learnt is that good planning and execution pre race is very important to have a successful campaign in and outside the water. And this demand enough time.
The Ocean Race is the longest and most demanding competition in the sport world featuring a communication platform able to reach hundreds of millions of people.
The Mirpuri Foundation believes that if it is able to inspire other people, then these people in turn will inspire others. If millions of people are conscious of the direction in which we should be going, and that we really need to change the course of the problems that affect our oceans, then the Mirpuri Foundation can have a huge impact by being the initiator of positive behavior and the power to reach a vast audience.
The Challenge
Since 1973, The Ocean Race has provided the ultimate test of a team and a human adventure like no other. Over four decades 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.
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.
The race sits 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 digital platforms, television and via the news as the race set new high-marks for international coverage.
Two classes will compete in the 2021-22 edition of the race with the addition of the high-tech, foiling IMOCA 60 class adding a design and technical element. The traditional one-design VO65 fleet will race on its third lap of the planet.
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 race will start from Alicante, Spain in the autumn of 2021 and finish in Europe in early summer of 2022. There will be up to nine stopover ports.
For now, the following cities are confirmed:
- Alicante
- Aarhus
- The Hague
- Cape Verde
- Genoa
- Itajaí
- Shenzhen
- Cape Town
- Auckland
Route Map
The race will start from Alicante, Spain in the autumn of 2021 and finish in Europe in early summer of 2022. There will be nine stopover ports.
Numbers
The previous edition of the Round the World Race in Numbers:
Over 2.5 million people visited the Race Villages.
23 female sailors in the race – the highest number ever. 7 Ocean Summits all over the world focused on sustainability themes and the dangers of plastic. Over 2.050 speakers and participants at the Ocean Summits, among them governments, startups and large organizations.
388.000 plastic bottles avoided in 12 stopovers. Over 114.000 children from 40 countries took part in the Education for Sustainability Program. 30 scientific buoys collected data about oceans and climate. 93% of the samples collected from the oceans registered the presence of microplastic particles.