Josh Hall’s 2008-09 Portimão Global Ocean Race (PGOR), lasted a total of 257 days from the start gun of Leg 1 in Portimão in early October 2008, to the last boat across the Leg 5 finish line in late June the following year. During this period, the fleet were at sea racing for 52% of the time (from the start gun of each leg to the first boat home at the end of each leg), with a fleet presence in-port for 48% of the race. With a dramatic increase in the fleet size for Hall’s Global Ocean Race 2011-12 (GOR) for double-handed Class40s, the opportunity to maximise the benefits onshore for the start/finish port, for the stopover locations, for the overall race sponsors and for individual team sponsors is a primary goal.

Hall and his team are currently in negotiation with nine ports for the rights to host the start and finish of the Global Ocean Race 2011-12. In the PGOR, the average, in-port time during a stopover was 28 days, with the longest period of 37 days spent over the New Year in Wellington, New Zealand, prior to Leg 3 through the Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans. The start/finish port that contracts with the GOR will have the majority share of the fleet’s time ashore with the boats and a race village in place three weeks prior to the start of Leg 1 and two weeks between the finish and the prize-giving at the conclusion of the circumnavigation. The value of the race presence for the host port during this extended period and for the race sponsors and the individual team sponsors is crucial.

Josh Hall is keenly aware of the role the GOR will play at sea and in-port: “We are a sailor’s race and provide a unique opportunity for our competitors to sail - in a relatively short space of time - through every type of weather and sea condition that planet Earth can provide,” he believes. “However, this race could not happen without the strong support of the host cities and providing them with a return on their investment is fundamental to the success and longevity of the event.”

For the four stopover ports during the GOR, there is no better model than Galway, Ireland – stopover at the end of Leg 7 in the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) from late May to early June this year. At the World Yacht Racing Forum (WYRF) held in Monaco in early December, Maria Moynihan Lee – Festival Director for the VOR Galway stopover – explained how Galway attracted 650,000 visitors to the town during the two weeks that the fleet was in port. One benefit was clearly the presence of an Irish entry in the race – Ian Walker and his team on Green Dragon – but the fundamental approach by Moynihan Lee and Tourism Ireland was to treat the stopover as a ‘visitor experience’, not just a sailing event: a vital decision for Galway considering the location’s invaluable experience as a tourism-based economy. It is also clear that while a race organisation can encourage a stopover port to engage fully with the event, it is vital that the hosts activate and optimise their involvement to prevent the stopover from becoming merely a static and sterile display with limited benefit to the local population or visitors.

For Moynihan Lee and the Festival team, the focus was on ‘touch, feel, smell, sight and sound’ and a brief look at video of the stopover confirms that Galway supplied an extraordinary spectacle and atmosphere. Indeed, one Galway pub reported a 600-fold increase in turnover during the fortnight the VOR fleet were in town with around 200,000 bed-nights in the area, while - when polled - most visitors explained that food was the initial reason for their visit to Galway. To manage such an intensely entertaining stopover was a triumph of organisation and Moynihan Lee confirms that 750 volunteers putting-in a total of 30,000 man hours were key to the stopover’s success. The legacy of the VOR Galway stopover is impressive: Tourism Ireland calculate that since the stopover, 99% of people would recommend Galway, which translates into good will stretching over 10 years delivering a €55.8 million economic input for Ireland. There are, obviously, less tangible consequences of Galway’s involvement: the Irish ‘brand’ Green Dragon carried Galway and Ireland around the globe while a schools program involving 16,000 students followed the VOR throughout the circumnavigation – an extraordinary legacy.

In the past, a stopover was considered as ‘downtime’ with minimal sporting activity and almost no news generated while the boats were static. When boats are racing, a huge volume of text, images and video can be sent ashore from the crews with spectator access to the offshore action through the event’s website, broadband TV, mobile phone portals and the social media of Facebook and Twitter. An online game has now become mandatory for round the world races with phenomenal success: 223,000 gamers from 180 countries registered for the VOR game and 340,000 players registered for the 2008-09 Vendée Globe Virtual Regatta, of which 50% playing in the non-stop circumnavigation had no interest or experience in sailing, but were attracted solely by the strategy aspect. In port, however, overall interest with the event predictably drops and despite in-port races during stopovers, spectator involvement inevitably declines.

For the Global Ocean Race sponsors – or any round the world race sponsors - the start/finish port and stopover ports are an opportunity for what is known in sponsorship-speak and marketing as ‘dwell time’: the presence of a brand and the ability to display products, organise hospitality, showcase services and engage new or existing customers and clients. Once again, the VOR is an excellent model. Volvo has been involved in sailing at a local level for ten years, but the VOR and the event’s ‘Life At The Extreme’ tag were a good fit for the company. At the WYRF, Karin Bäcklund – Director of Global Sponsorship and Brand Partnership at Volvo – explained that the company’s traditional image is linked to safety, quality and the family: a highly successful formula, but Volvo wanted to make their brand more exciting and to foster an emotional brand awareness. For Bäcklund and Volvo, the VOR represented safety and the environment; design and quality; performance and team work: all characteristics with an image appeal for Volvo that could alter the overall perception of the Volvo brand.

While the route of the VOR would open up new markets for Volvo cars (in India, for example, Volvo = bus), the race village in the start/finish and stopover ports was a key element for Volvo. During the VOR, the big screen on the Volvo pavilion was used to showcase both the event and Volvo products and while ‘eyeball’ (a physical and visual presence with branding, flags, banners, posters and media coverage etc), is important, the more enlightened aim is to invoke a sense of passion, engagement and to increase a potential to purchase. Karin Bäcklund confirms that one million visitors entered the VOR race village in the European ports while Volvo entertained 10,000 guests around the world by organising test drives, supplying limited edition race-cars and entertaining customers and dealers globally. Volvo calculate that the entire race generated US$116 million in media value with 55% of people polled feeling more positive about the brand with an ROI (return on investment) of three or four times the financial outlay. It is clear, however, that unless a race sponsor is fully involved and engaged with the event, any financial investment turns from a potentially successful sponsorship into a squandered donation.

“The VOR is an impressive role model for any sailing event and their candid sharing of data and information is welcome,” comments Hall. “As organisers, we learnt a great deal during the first running of our event and will be building on this experience and taking onboard many elements of other successful, long-standing events to maximise benefit for all our sponsors, partners and host ports,” he says. “We are committed to driving the evolution of our event.”