NOAA is providing essential support to the Volvo Ocean Race , an eight-month around-the-world sailing race covering 32,500 nautical miles through four oceans, including port stops in nine countries. NOAA is helping to ensure safe navigation services for the racers and is providing education materials to teachers via the internet. The racers stopped in Baltimore and Annapolis from April 17 through the race restart on May 7.

NOAA services are essential to the safety of the Volvo racers. NOAA models provide near real-time data on sea surface currents, sea surface temperature, surface winds, and wave height and direction. Volvo’s race meteorologists use NOAA graphics for every leg of the race so they can provide accurate forecasts to the racers. The racers use NOAA nautical charts. NOAA is also helping racers avoid whale strikes by monitoring endangered north Atlantic right whale sightings along the Atlantic Coast to New York, and from New York to Portsmouth, England. SARSAT, an instrument package flown aboard NOAA environmental satellites, also is ready to provide life-saving capability to the racers. Each crew is carrying an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). EPIRBs send out identifying information to a NOAA-operated control center in Suitland, Maryland, so that, in the event of an accident, recovery of the racers is swift.

With a big boost from NOAA, landlubbers also can engage in the race. An interactive, online ocean science program, developed in partnership with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, teaches about NOAA-related sciences.