The Hindu Business Line : ‘Race Village’ in Kochi gets ready for action

Kochi, Nov. 13 The Kandla-based Jaisu Shipping and Tata Consultancy Services have joined the Volvo Ocean Race India Stopover Team as sponsors, supporting the hosting of stopover event, being hosted by Cochin Port Trust and Kerala Tourism.

As the world’s fastest racing yachts are getting ready to start their second leg of the race to Kochi, the Race Village at Willingdon Island is ready to receive the advance race teams and other promoters and participants of Volvo Ocean Race.

The Race Village, spread over an area more than 60,000 sq metres, (about 6.5 lakh sq.ft.) comprises temporary marina for berthing of the race yachts a Pavilion area of 20,000 sq metres for Volvo and other international brands, Volvo Ocean Race experience area, Ocean Race Trade Fest, Ketchup- the biggest food carnival of Kochi, mega stage for staging daily events, technical base for teams and Race Offices and Media Centre.

The containers carrying the materials and equipments for setting up the pavilions and team bases of Volvo, Ericsson, Puma and other companies will reach Kochi in a couple of days’ time and the advance teams will start coming in by November 18.

The land required for setting up the pavilions has been developed by the Cochin Port Trust and the construction for Ocean Race Trade Fest pavilion has already been started.

The daily events have been finalized and a cultural fiesta will be presented by Kerala Tourism, Indian Council for Cultural Relations etc Indian Navy and Yachting Association of India will also be organizing events during the Stopover.

Meanwhile, the organisers of the race informed that they have made significant changes in the route structure in the wake of the piracy threats. A new scoring gate is being introduced and a divergence in the direction is also being announced. There are several problematic areas in the route to Cochin.

As it stands, the areas of most concern are the waters off the coast of Somalia, the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, the stretch of water between west Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra that will come into play on leg three,” says international organisers.

To tackle the threat, the Race Committee has added a leg two scoring waypoint below Mauritius and an exclusion zone above to keep the fleet east and away from Somalia, where on Monday a Philippines chemical tanker with 23 crew was hijacked.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, of the 199 recorded acts of piracy worldwide in the first nine months of the year 63 occurred in the waters off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

It is a different situation in the Strait of Malacca, which between 1984 and 2007 averaged 20 reported piracy incidents a year, but is at its safest level in five years.

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