Tag: volvo ocean race

Cape Town this weekend

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I might have been a bit down on Cape Town and SA in my last couple of posts. (They’re here and here.) Potentially justifiably so, but it would be wrong not to balance things up a bit.

Because this weekend, Cape Town hosted the inaugural Cape Town e-prix, hosted the ICC Women’s T20World Cup Final, hosted The Ocean Race in yachting,

EDIT: And the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s Championship

…and had several (or more) cruise ships visiting:

That’s quite literally billions and billions of Rands into going into local businesses. And when all else seems to be against them, that’s got to be a very good thing.

So we continue to exist, survive and even thrive in our little south-western bubble. It’s not all doom and gloom out there, no matter what you might have read.



pic via twitter

Yachts

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I missed out on going to see the yachts from the Volvo Ocean Race when they were in town this year. As you might have noticed from the lack of quality and quantity of blogging lately, I’m chaotically busy with trying to fit in experiments ahead of the the Christmas and summer break and trying to fit in everything else before we head up to the UK “soon”.

But the footage of the teams leaving Cape Town and heading the 8000 odd miles to Kochi in India was stunning:

That’s the corporate package – if you want the technical detail, you can watch the full, 85 minute version of the start here.

The stopover in Cape Town was supported the the tune of R750,000 by the city council, and while the maths still needs to be done, it looks like a sound investment, given the number of people going to see the yachts in port (not me) and seeing the city on TV and – increasingly – on the internet.

The event will be televised to an estimated 1.8 billion people, and the publicity will help position the city as a desirable investment and tourist choice.

Worth every cent then…

Volvo Ocean Race names Cape Town as first stop

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The Volvo Ocean Race has named Cape Town as the first port-of-call for the 2014/15 event. The competing teams will leave Alicante in Spain on October 11th 2014 and are expected to arrive in Cape Town around the end of the month. There will then be an in-port race in Table Bay on Novmber 15th before they head off to Abu Dhabi on November 19th.

This comes after a first stop in Recife was abandoned when a team local to the port withdrew from the race.

vor

Cape Town has been on the route for 10 of the 12 VORs and it’s a big money spinner for the city:

Councillor Grant Pascoe, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events & Marketing, said he was delighted the City of Cape Town and the V&A Waterfront would host the event once more.

“Not only does this race offer worldwide marketing exposure for Cape Town and raise the City and V & A Waterfront’s profile as a top leisure and events destination, it also provides a valuable boost for the many local industries through visitor and organiser spend”

The total race distance is now just under 73,000km and will finish on June 27th 2015 in Gothenburg, over seven months after it started.