How to win

The new system will give extra reward for those teams putting in the strongest performances in the two Southern ocean legs and the classic transatlantic leg from Newport to Cardiff.

The new rules state:

• Scoring will return to a high-points system.
• The two Southern Ocean legs – from Cape Town to Melbourne, and Auckland to Itajaí, plus the North Atlantic leg near the end of the race, Newport to Cardiff – will all score double points.
• The winner of every leg will score one bonus point (7+1 bonus point for a win, 6 for second, 5 for third, etc).
• There will be a bonus point for the first team to round Cape Horn in a nod to the historic significance of this turning point in the race.
• A further bonus point will be awarded for the team with the best total elapsed time overall in the race.
• The In-Port Series won’t count in the overall points but will remain the tiebreaker should teams be tied on points at the finish in The Hague.

“One of the most fantastic things about the move to One Design in 2014-15 was that we had extraordinarily close racing all the way around the world – but there was also a bit of a ‘sheep’ mentality, with no-one really wanting to break from the fleet for fear of being left behind, and instead just wanting to play the averages” explained Mark Turner, former CEO.

This newly introduced scoring system will change that

Turner continues: “We needed to do something to encourage that strategic risk-taking. We’ve amending the points system, but we’re also considering things like blackouts in terms of positions, so teams can go into ‘stealth’ mode, and in terms of weather data provided, so that navigators need to use more of their own judgement at certain times.”

Click here to see our crew rules.