Today is the first official press conference of the Barcelona World Race, marking the opening of the pre-start period. The Moll Barcelona World Race Expo opens tomorrow (Saturday 18 December).


The finishing touches are being completed to make ready the huge Race Expo, when visitors will have their chance to meet first hand the 30 skippers forming 15 teams from eight different nations who are due to set off around the world when the second edition of the Barcelona World Race starts on Friday 31 December 2010. Click on map above for course route and gates.



The futuristic 4500 square metre exhibition space will offer a complete range of entertainment and information for all the family from Saturday’s opening through the race start period, until 6 January.



”The building and interior work has taken more than one month to complete, with between 80 and 200 people on site at any one time to make sure we are ready on time.” Explained Pere Sarquella, Operations Director for the Fundació Navegació Oceánica.



There are two main areas contained within the Expo, a sea scene area which will host the marine related activities and an interactive area where visitors will be able to try computer simulations and gain valuable information about the Barcelona World Race. After the race has started the first live video conferences will be broadcast here.



Visitors will also have access to the Race Fleet Dock which will allow them to walk the dock and to see the boats and their cutting edge technology up close and personal. The race rules stipulate that the boats must be in Barcelona by midday today.

And Groupe Bel makes 14

After leaving Port La Camargue Wednesday evening in the grip of extreme winds, Kito de Pavant (FRA) and Sebastien Audigane (FRA) arrived in Barcelona a little after 15:30 yesterday afternoon as the 14th IMOCA Open 60 in Barcelona of the 15 which are entered for the Barcelona World Race.

The delivery marked the end of a very intense period of work for the Groupe Bel team after De Pavant had to withdraw from the Route du Rhum with a keel ram problem.


Kito de Pavant explained: “It is a tonic to get the delivery done. Yesterday evening we left at 23:00hrs after a little aperitif with the people of Grau du Roi. It was not really very inspiring, it was O degrees and loads of wind. Fortunately it dropped for us getting off the dock, but as soon as we left it got up and up. Twenty then 30, 40 and up to 55 knots. It really did not stop until we got to Palamos, it was extremely windy. We did the delivery with an old ORC jib we had from when the boat was first launched. We were still making up to 20 knots. But it was pretty chilly and so we appreciated having the heating on board.”


”Our departure felt like one long period of work, almost three weeks. And even yesterday evening we still had painters inside the boat. There are still little jobs to do. In particular we still have sails which we badly need to test, all flat sails and a new spinnaker, which we could not test on the way down because of the wind. But we will get that done. There are still 15 days to go before the start.”

Teams:

Central Lechera Asturiana – Juan Merediz (ESP) / Fran Palacio (ESP)
Estralla Damm – Alex Pella (ESP) / Pepe Ribes (ESP)
Foncia – Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) / Francois Gabart (FRA)
Fruit Around the World – Kris Owczarek (POL) / Armand Coursodon (FRA)
Forum Maritim Catala – Gerard Marin (ESP) / Ludovic Aglaor (FRA)
Gaes Centros Auditivos – Dee Caffari (UK) / Anna Corbella (ESP)
Groupe Bel – Kito de Pavant (FRA) / Sebastien Audigane (FRA)
Hugo Boss – Alex Thomson (UK) / Andrew Meiklejohn (NZD)
Mapfre – Iker Martinez (ESP) / Xabi Fernandez (ESP)
Mirabaud – Dominique Wavre (SUI) / Michele Paret (FRA)
Neutrogena – Boris Herrmann (GER) / Ryan Breymaier (USA)
President – Jean le Cam (Fra) / Bruno Garcia (ESP)
Renault – Pachi Rivero (ESP) / Antonio Piris (ESP)
Virbac-Paprec 3 – Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA) / Loick Peyron (FRA)
We Are Water – Jaume Mumbru (ESP) / Cali Sanmarti (ESP)

Record to beat:
The winners of the first edition of the race (Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall, Paprec Virbac 2) took 92 days, nine hours, 49 minutes and 49 seconds to win the race, with a theoretical average speed of 11.13 knots.

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