The Volvo Ocean Race, a 32,700-mile round the world race, for professional sailors, which takes place every four years, starts on 12 November from Vigo, Spain. The event comprises nine-legs, and finishes on 17 June 2006 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Over the last four years, since the previous event, the organisers have instigated many changes to the format including moving the event away from its historic starting venue of Southampton in the UK to Galica, Spain. They've also altered the race format to include In-port racing. So as well as the nine legs of the race, there'll be In-port races at most of the stopovers with the points from these events counting in the overall scoring. The first of these races takes place on Saturday 5 November in Sanxenxo, exactly one week before the start of Leg 1 from Vigo.

The main change the event however, is the introduction of a new design - the VO70. At 2m longer than the previous VO60 but only 550kg heavier, and with an increased sail of up to 50 per cent downwind generating 75 per cent more horsepower, these new canting keel 'super-beasts' are going to give the 12-strong crew in each team a very exciting time.

Scoring
The scoring systems on volvooceanrace.org shows that as well as points accumulated for the In Port races and finishing each leg, there'll be points for passing scoring gates along the course as well. And the overall winner will be the boat that scores the highest number of points by the time they reach Gothenburg.

The winner of an ocean leg will get points equal to the number of entries at the start of the race, less the number of boats placed above her on that leg. For instance, if all seven entries start the race in Vigo, then the first boat home in Cape Town will get seven points, the second will get six and so on. If by some misfortune a boat drops out of the race at any stage, the first boat home on any subsequent leg will still get seven points, but the last will get two points instead of one.

For the In Port races, boats receive points equal to half the number of entries, less half the number of boats placed above her in that race. For example, the winner of the Sanxenxo In Port race will get three and a half points, and the third boat will get two and a half points, the fifth boat will get one and a half points. The same, half value scoring method will apply at the gates on some of the legs.