Starting from 3 September 2005, VELUX is the main sponsor of the 5 Oceans yacht race. This means, among other things, that the VELUX brand name has been incorporated into the race name – VELUX 5 OCEANS – and that VELUX also acquires extensive rights of marketing, PR and media activities.
The world's toughest sailing event
5 Oceans is the world’s oldest and toughest single-handed round-the-world yacht race. In fact the race is the longest and most demanding sporting achievement ever. The skippers of the participating ocean-going yachts will each cover 55,000 kilometres, cross five oceans, and in the course of the race face some of the harshest conditions in nature.
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The race attracts both the yachting elite and novice daredevils. Common for them all is that they have struggled to become the best within their field, to finance their participation, to prepare their boats, and to reach the start line. Yet the real battle commences once the starting gun has been fired. Now the real work begins – in biting cold, baking heat, storms, metre-high waves and whatever else the oceans can throw at them, combined with physical and mental exhaustion from many months of being at sea. |
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The 2006 race
In 2006, the race celebrates its 25th anniversary by launching the toughest race ever. When the boats leave Getxo Marina on the Basque coast close to Bilbao, the competing skippers can look forward to longer legs between ports, fewer and more compact stays - and less time to prepare for the next leg.
This time VELUX 5 OCEANS runs from the north coast of Spain to western Australia, on to Norfolk on the US eastern seaboard, and finishes with a sprint back across the Atlantic to Bilbao.
Three races in one
The three different legs of the race provide a wealth of opportunity for different sailing conditions and challenges. The biggest challenge for the VELUX 5 OCEANS skippers is to actually complete three types of race in one. Each leg offers individual points and thereby intensifies the overall competition, contributing to making it a momentous, crowd-pulling media event. |
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The VELUX 5 OCEANS story
The race was established as the first solo round-the-world yacht race in 1982 and has been held every four years since then. The race has a well-earned reputation as one of the greatest challenges in sailing: more people have climbed Mount Everest than have completed the VELUX 5 OCEANS.
For that very reason, VELUX 5 OCEANS skippers enjoy the status of heroes in the yachting world – people such as Philippe Jeantot, Christophe Augin, Giovanni Soldini, Jean-Luc van den Heede and Isabelle Autissier have all demonstrated that they are made of stuff which other sailors barely dream about.
And despite the fierce competition between them at sea, they enjoy a unique sense of camaraderie on land – a sense of togetherness that is seldom found among other sportsmen and women.
At the end of the course, the skippers will have raced alone across 30,000 miles of ocean; tortured by sleep deprivation, nourished by freeze-dried rations, they will have combated the perilous obstacles of treacherous seas, raging winds and hidden ice burgs. |