The Velux 5 Oceans Is Here. The Velux 5 Oceans Is DOA.

Okay, so I'm slashing and burning. Do I have a better idea, you ask? Well, as it happens, yes. The Vendee Globe is, and always will be, the headline event of solo RTW racing. It’s got a hardcore following from sailors, sponsors, and international audiences. It can live on. I mean, how can you argue with this:

But the Velux 5 Oceans needs to move on and reinvent itself. How? Here’s how: Just as the America’s Cup tossed monohulls aside, the 5 Oceans should do the same. The Volvo Ocean Race, which is also looking at a pretty dismal lack of competitors, might pay attention here, too. 

Yep, it’s time to go multihull, baby! A Jules Verne record attempt (both solo and crewed) is an awesome event to behold. Yet, save for Bruno Peyron’s The Race, we never get multihulls lining up bows to bows. What if we were to take this out onto the globe’s oceans?

It could be solo, and it could be crewed. It could be nonstop, and it could be with stops. I don’t really care. It just needs to be fast, competitive, and adrenalized. There are lots of formats and configurations. But they all have one thing in common: they would inject something new and exciting into the monotonous, monohull, RTW concept. And that, my friends, is painfully overdue.