The Volvo open 70s going at break neck speed through the North Atlantic heading for Lorient, France.
The 1,940 NM leg started on 10 June 2012. From Lisbon the fleet travelled to a turning point at
São Miguel Island before heading to Lorient.
The
2011–12 Volvo Ocean Race was the 11th edition of the round-the-world
Volvo Ocean Race,
yacht race which started with an in-port race in
Alicante,
Spain on 29 October 2011 with six
Volvo Open 70 yachts at the start line and ended with an in-port race in
Galway,
Ireland on 7 July 2012. The 39,270
NM route involved stopovers and in-port races in
Cape Town,
Abu Dhabi,
Sanya,
Auckland,
Itajaí,
Brazil,
Miami,
Lisbon,
Lorient. The race consisted of nine ocean races and ten in-port races. Overall winner was Groupama.
The Teams were:
Groupama - Groupama was a French team skippered by Franck Cammas. The team acquired Ericsson 4, the second generation Volvo Open 70 that won the 2008-09 event, for training purposes. Their new boat Groupama 4 was built at the Multiplast shipyard in Vannes, France.
- Team Telefónica
- Team Telefónica announced their participation in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 on 12 April 2011. The company will sponsor Pedro Campos’ team for the third consecutive time. The team could not use the former Telefónica boats as training boats, because the deadline for using second generation boats as training boats ended in March 2011. Their new boat was built at the King Marine shipyard in Valencia, Spain and is skippered by Iker Martinez.
- Puma Ocean Racing powered by Berg Propulsion
- Puma Ocean Racing, powered by BERG Propulsion was skippered again by Ken Read. Their training boat, Il Mostro is Puma's boat from the 2008-2009 race, which placed second in that event. Their new boat Mar Mostro was built by New England Boatworks in Newport, Rhode Island.
- Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand
- Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand was skippered by Chris Nicholson with a new Volvo Open 70 boat that was built by Cookson Boatbuilders in Auckland, New Zealand.
- Team Sanya
- Team Sanya was skippered by Mike Sanderson (skipper of ABN Amro One, 2005-06 event winner). This team announced their entry on 17 June 2011 and are racing in the refitted second generation boat Sanya Lan (formerly Telefonica Blue).
The race used a scoring system where the overall winner was the team with the most points at the end of the race. All races counted with no discards allowed. The boats were awarded points in every race, six to one in in-port races and 30–5 points (30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5) for ocean races (legs). The race had a total of nine ocean legs and ten in-port races. Due to
piracy the legs to and from
Abu Dhabi were given two scores with the same total as the other legs. The scores were be divided 80+20% and 20+80% respectively.
In addition to the ocean and in-port races there were no-score pro-am races in every port where sponsors and guests were given an experience as close to that of true professional sailing.
