Until the 1997-98
Whitbread Round the World Race, which became the Volvo Ocean
Race from 2001-02 onwards, the fleet sailed over the horizon
and had little or no contact with the rest of the world or
the boats they were sailing against. Now it is different, with
data-packed position reports issued to the fleet and the world
every three hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with
nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. But today that changes
again, as StealthPlay is introduced, giving each boat competing
in the 10th edition of the race, the chance to hide once more,
although not for an entire leg.
The idea behind StealthPlay is to allow a team to make
a tactical break from the fleet without the rest of competitors
knowing what they are doing and where they are on the race
track. Once a team opts to use StealthPlay their position
will not be visible to the rest of the fleet, or the public,
and they will 'disappear' for 12 hours, adding a new thrilling
tactical dimension to the race.
If, having analyzed their own position and those of their
competitors from a position report, a team decides to activate
StealthPlay, they must call Race Headquarters within 30
minutes of the position report being released. The play
will last for the next 12 hours and boat's position will
not be shown on the three scheduled reports normally released
within that period. The boat will become visible again
at the next position report after that period.
StealthPlay is an option and is not mandatory, and it can
only be called on the longer offshore legs. It will be
in action for the first time on leg one from Alicante to
Cape Town (starting this Saturday) and then on leg two
(Cape Town to Cochin), leg five (Qingdao to Rio), leg six
(Rio to Baltimore) and leg seven (Baltimore to Galway).
If it is not used on one leg, it cannot be accumulated
for use on a following leg.
When a boat in play passes a scoring gate and there are
seven gates around the course, her rounding time and points
scored will be made public. Her position will also be made
public when the team is within 50 nautical miles of the
finish.
Race Headquarters in the UK will continue to monitor each
boat's progress every 15 minutes for safety reasons, but
this information is never made public.
Position reporting times will be every three hours at 1000,
1300, 1600, 1900, 2200, 0100, 0400, 0700 throughout the
duration of each offshore leg of the race. Position reports
are circulated among the fleet as well as being published
on www.volvooceanrace.org along with other technical data.
Visit
www.volvooceanrace.org for
all the latest news!
