Volvo Ocean Race organisers dismiss safety concerns

By Kate Laven 651PM GMT sixteen March 2010

The proclamation of Abu Dhabi as the pier to host the finish of the second leg from Cape Town will need the swift of 70 feet competition boats to cruise up the easterly seashore of Africa that given Oct last year has seen increasing robbery wake up off Somalia, together with the abduction of British sailors Paul and Rachel Chandler who are still being hold hostage.

The competition march will additionally take crews in to the Arabian Gulf where sensitivities over doubtful territories led to a British organisation being incarcerated for five days last Dec by the Revolutionary Guard in Iran after they strayed in to Iranian waters.

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"There is regularly a risk that a vessel could be boarded," pronounced Volvo Ocean Race Director Jack Lloyd, who has drawn up a method of ostracism zones and waypoints to safeguard the swift maintains 700nms area off the Horn of Africa and keeps well afar from the doubtful islands in the Strait of Hormuz.

"We wouldn"t be targets in that we won"t be carrying millions of barrels of oil but abduction is a risk. We have systems in place for negotiations in box there is a abduction and the sailors will be done entirely wakeful of the risks so they are prepared, only similar to last time."

In the last race, crews went from Cape Town to Cochin up the seashore of Africa but no incidents were reported solely for approaches from vessels perplexing to sell fish.

"Last time we had reports of robbery in Singapore and this year, there have been attacks off Brazil so we are traffic with issues all over the world. We are receiving all the recommendation we can get," pronounced Lloyd.

Ian Walker, skipper of Green Dragon in the last competition in 2008-09 pronounced the precautions taken by Volvo should minimise the risk to crews.

"If the stream incident stays afterwards we will have to mount multiform hundred miles off the Somalian seashore to revoke the hazard of bandit attack. This is not separate to the last competition and can no disbelief be tranquil with waypoints or scoring gates.

"The swift will be well suggested to have all their office work in sequence as there can be a lot of security and bureaucracy but my feeling is there should be no issues if they stay close to the Oman / UAE coastline."