The next edition of the Fully Crewed Around the World Race, (FCAWR), formerly known as the Volvo Ocean Race will start from Alicante, Spain in September/October of 2021, and finish in Europe in May/June of 2022.

The Preliminary Notice of Race for this race was published in early October 2018 and there have been a lot of discussions about the final form.



Rob Kothe has been talking to the race organisers and some of the likely race entrants.

Sweden’s Richard Brisius and Johan Salén’s company Atlant Ocean Racing Spain has taken ownership of race from Volvo Cars and Volvo Group. Brisius who sailed in the 1989 and 1993 race and teamed with Salén as very successful Team Managers before their involvement with the 2017-18 race as overall race managers, is very upbeat about the future.

He says “This race is like an addiction and the sailors just keep coming back. Yes, the working title of the race is a mouthful, but we expect to shorten up the name soon.”

As announced there are some significant changes planned for the race, but the Devil is in the Detail and many of the rules could yet change in the next two months. There will be two separate classes, the semi-foiling IMOCA 60’s will compete for the FCAWR Trophy, the VO65 for the Youth Challenge Trophy.

The race organisers have proposed that the IMOCA 60 Class yachts will have a total number of six people on board, including the OBR, one of the racing crew would need to be female. If four of the crew are female the total number will rise to seven.

Not everyone agrees with the proposed numbers. VOR skipper Dee Caffari, who is looking for next race funding has sailed the IMOCA 60’s extensively both in single-handed, double-handed and with larger crews. “It’s miserable being on these existing IMOCA 60s with five people,” Caffari says. “Six or seven all up will be tougher again. A whole new accommodation reorganisation would be needed”.

Recognising the concerns Brisius says “We are looking carefully at the feedback. We recognise there are physical limitations, particularly for the older boats.”

Crew numbers are not the issue for the VOR65s. Caffari circulated with 13 including the OBR on Turn the Tide on Plastic in the 2017-18 race. Organisers have proposed the VO65 Class boats should have a maximum number of crew (excluding the OBR) onboard of ten. Of these, three crew will need to have significant previous Volvo Ocean Race or equivalent offshore race experience. That likely means the skipper and two watch captains.

At least seven crew will need to be under the age of 30 and at least three crew under the age of 26 at end June 2022, that means potential crew to slide under that rope right now, must have been born in July 1996, so now cannot be older than 22. At least three of the crew shall be female.

The most contentious issues yet to be decided are those of corporate sailing. Sailors who have raced in the VOR know the pressures that come from busy Stopover schedules, with Media Days, Pro-AMs as well as Inport races, something the IMOCA 60 sailors have not experienced.

There have been some robust conversations about stopover schedules. Brisius explais: “I think the challenge for any sport is to deliver the value to the corporate sector and so to sail in a Pro-Am, for instance, can provide a lifetime memory for guests

“But we are aware that during the stopovers, there is concern that with heavy corporate schedules, leg preparation might suffer, so maybe we will need to reduce some of the load.”

The rules of the race broadly follow that of the 2017-18 race, with some scoring changes, as Race Director Phil Lawrence explains: “We have dropped the bonus points for a Leg Win, Cape Horn and Elapsed Time to simplify the points system for the wider public audience. But we have kept the double points for the West-East Trans Ocean Legs.”



Aiming for his seventh RTW race is Australian veteran Chris Nicholson (49), who has sailed four races as a watch captain and twice as skipper. He along with fellow AkzoNobel sailor, watch and boat captain Nicolai Sehested (28) from Denmark are knocking on Boardroom doors, proposing a two boat 2021-22 campaign.

Notably, since the last race, the duo has done a lot of corporate sailing with AkzoNobel.

Nico told Rob Kothe that a double boat campaign, with a new IMOCA 60 racing for the major race prize and a Youth Challenge VO65 makes a lot of sense. “You only need one set of Team Managers, one Stopover stand, one set of PR people and shore crew and shoreside support in terms of metrology etc,” he explained.

“You could possibly have senior crew rotating between the boats. There are a lot of exciting possibilities with that.

“I feel the return on value for the sponsors has never been better than it is right now. For me, a new built fully crewed IMOCA 60, with a new structure redesign built specially to withstand the way we push the boats is essential. I don’t think it would be good seamanship to leave the dock in an existing IMOCA 60 in a fully crewed RTW race. You can’t back these boats off the way the existing single or double handed IMOCA 60’s have been sailed.

“I think that a newly built boat would then be very completive in the Vendee Globe and other IMOCA 60 races.

“The rule changes that increase the number of women on the boats and the number of young sailors doing the race have worked well in the last race and they are needed for this next race. It means that in future the pool of experienced sailors will be greater, and these rules won’t be needed.

“The racing in the last event was the best and I am so looking forward to another lap.”

The official Notice of Race for the next race could be released at the Paris Boat Show in early December and entries soon after.

It would not surprise if the Australian-Danish duo were the first entrant. If they are successful in securing the funding to mount a competitive campaign this would be the pair’s third around the world race together, having first competed in 2014-15 when Nicholson skippered Danish entry Team Vestas Wind.