If you could be anywhere in the world right now...

Meredith asks me this question all the time. And my answer is always the same. If you want to know what the answer is, then read on.

What's the coolest thing about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest? The coolest thing isn't the movie breaking all sorts of box office records. The coolest thing is The Walt Disney Company decided to utilize a small percentage of its marketing budget for the movie to fund an entry in The Volvo Ocean Race.

I introduce to you:

Pirates of the Caribbean -- The Black Pearl
Registration -- Isla de Muerta, No. 7706.

The Volvo Ocean Race

The boats in the race are designated as the Volvo Open 70 Class (they're approximately 70ft long and have masts over 100ft high). To give you an idea of the speed of these boats, the most popular and well-know boats, the America's Cup Class, have only 6% more sail area but are over 11 tons heavier! I could go on about the technological advances in these boats (canting keels are amazing), but because I'm sure this excites absolutely none of you, lets get on with the race.

217 Days, 23 Hrs, 30 Mins, 51 Secs---that's how long it took The Black Pearl. Now you're probably saying it only took Philease Fogg 80 days. True, very true. But not only are these boats sailing the ENTIRE way, but they also stop at every port and conduct an in-port race (IPR) to earn points towards the win. Points are awarded for the order you finish IPRs, the order you cross scoring gates during ocean legs and the order you finish ocean leg races (seven IPRs, six gates, nine legs). The race started in Galicia, Spain on Saturday, November 5, 2005 and ended in Gothenburg, Sweden on Saturday, June 17, 2006. The Black Pearl took 2nd place.

Course Map

Although The Black Pearl didn't win, just finishing the race is a feat in itself. Of the eight boats that participated, only six finished. Problems that occur during a race like this are as mild as cracks in the keel and water frying navigation stations, to much more serious problems like losing the mast and rigging and on-board fires. Now you're beginning to understand why the race takes so long - each team spends a good amount of time in port making repairs and crew changes.

You would think the most severe incident occurred when movistar was abandoned and lost at sea on May 21st, Day 11 of Leg 7---the trans-Atlantic crossing from New York to Portsmouth. What could be worse than losing a multi-million dollar boat (the estimated cost of fielding a boat campaign is $20 million +/- $4 million)? Just a couple days before, Hans Horrevoets, crewmember on ABN AMRO TWO, was swept overboard and could not be resuscitated after his body was found. The amazing thing about this story is a couple days after they had lost their crewmate, with his body still on board, the crew of ABN AMRO TWO decided to turn around and rescue the crew of movistar after they were forced to abandon ship. Now that's sportsmanship.

This years race saw the setting of a new 24 hour run record of 562.96 nautical miles (647.84 land miles = 27 mph for 24 hrs!) by the 4th place team, ABN AMRO TWO. Their big brother, ABN AMRO ONE, won the race.

And just in case you were wondering what we did to market Curse of the Black Pearl...talk about an upgrade. I wonder what we'll end up sponsoring for Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End---it comes out May 25th of 2007!