25, 000 miles across the oceans

The Barcelona World Race course travels around the world, from Barcelona to Barcelona following a course known as the 'three cape' route. As such, the yachts will set off from Barcelona toward the Gibraltar Strait, and following an Atlantic descent they will put the capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn to port and the continent of Antarctica to starboard. The regatta rules stipulate a passage through Cook Strait in New Zealand, one of the race's safety waypoints.

The approximate length of the course is 25,000 nautical miles (46,300 km) following a Great Circle route, the shortest possible route traced across the map. The winner of the first edition, Paprec-Virbac 2 with Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall employed 92 days, 9 hours, 49 minutes and 49 seconds to complete the course, with an average speed therefore, of 11.13 knots

Safety gates

The safety gates are established to limit the descent of the yachts into dangerous areas, perhaps because of floating ice or because these areas are too far away from maritime rescue services in the southernmost countries.

The zone borders will depend on the evolution of the ice caps (floating polar ice), and as such, won't be made known until the 1^st of November 2010, two months ahead of the start.

Penalties

Any stop ahead of 140ºE will not be penalised. That is the longitude for the extreme Southeast of Australia, before the island of Tasmania. From thereon until the finish in Barcelona, any stop on land will be of an obligatory 48 hours in length.

Speed Trophies

For this edition of the Barcelona World Race, legs will be marked out between the longitude of natural points of passage. For each of these natural legs there will be a speed trophy, which means a ranking in terms of the time each entry has taken to complete the distance, independently from the overall ranking in the regatta.

The following Trophies will be given: