Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Alicante Bound

On the road to Europe with sights set on Alicante, Spain and the start of the Volvo Ocean Race. It’s a bit of a dream come true, since first laying eyes on the 70 foot carbon beauties in Baltimore, back in 2006, its been a career goal to follow this event. Of course the original idea was to be working with a VOR team, this has proven much harder than lugging around sails two times one’s weight.

The current program is proving to be a very satisfying venture, allowing more attention to the entire event. The means necessary to travel to a country one does not speak the language and a town they’ve never been too should make for some colorful tales. Especially when on one’s own, sticking to a pretty low-profile, back packer, nomadic style about it. This should be interesting.

Sailing: Sailing World Blog
Non-sailing: Suite101.com
Odds and Ends: BoatBites.com

As far as writing and event coverage, Volvo does a pretty sweet job in my personal opinion, and they just launched their new site:

Volvo TV
Media Center
Virtual Spectator

My goal is to cover as much of the “happenings” typical media folks do not seem interesting enough to share with the rest of the world. There never seems any real scoop about what is happening around town (i.e. race village events,etc.), what the city does to accommodate the event and maybe some time with shore-crews for insider tales of what it takes to get the campaigns off the ground.

Would really like a chat with the Delta Lloyd folks, seriously on the low with budget, there has to be a great story to how they made it all come together at the eleventh hour. Now, do they have what they need to get around the world? Every boat I’m sure has a story with some a tad more entertaining than another.

Not expecting too much drama from Telefonica or Ericsson, with such well planned and thought out programs, very little has been left to the imagination. The Russians would be a real hoot to talk with, once chatted with someone who told me they are struggling to get their country behind them. The boys need cheerleaders!

Feeling good that both the Green Dragon and Puma have a solid following, though, I’ll be hard pressed if anyone gets me into some candy apple red puma swag. Prefer a more modest means to support.

Really wishing well to all the teams and do not want to say who my favorites are. Do not believe many could even guess which. Maybe that could be a contest later on in this venture.

It’s going to be a great event, very appreciative to be here and excited to share it with those who can not make the Alicante start. Before we know it, they’ll be in Boston, MA.

Cheers!

No comments: