One Of New Zealand's Best Sailors Aims For Triple Crown In Round-The-World Race
Peter Burling has already won Olympic gold and the America's Cup. Soon he'll start the grueling Volvo Ocean Race. Sleep deprivation, freeze-dried food and giant waves are only some of the challenges.
It's considered one of the world's most grueling races: a nine-month, 45,000-nautical-mile marathon around the globe, with 11 stops including Cape Town, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Newport.
This Sunday, seven identical boats — each is a 65-ft. monohull with nine team members aboard — will set sail from Alicante, Spain, for the Volvo Ocean Race, now in its 13th edition. Lisbon will be the first stop, before the teams head south to Cape Town.
When the teams — from countries including Spain, the Netherlands, China, and even one from the U.N. — finish in The Hague next June, the boats and the sailors will be battered. This and sailing the Indian and Pacific oceans in the Southern Hemisphere.
