The organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race have been monitoring the developments of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India overnight and the entire Volvo Ocean Race family’s thoughts are with the victims and their families during this terrible time.

The organisers have sought advice from their various security consultants, including Control Risks (csg.com), as to what actions, if any, the race should be taking now that the eight-strong racing fleet is just 700 nautical miles from the finish line of Leg 2 in Cochin, 1,000km from Mumbai.

Race personnel already in or expected soon in Cochin, namely the organisation’s advance team, the shore crews, the teams’ and event’s families, sponsors and their guests, along with the visiting media, a group that will peak at over 400 over the next two weeks, have all been informed of the situation and advised to be extra vigilant with security.

The risk of terrorism throughout India was previously at the ‘underlying threat’ level. Following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday no upgrade of terrorist threat level has been made for the city of Cochin. Currently no changes to the Volvo Ocean Race programme schedule are expected for the Cochin stopover.

The site of the Cochin stopover is located on Willington Island in the Commercial Port area, adjacent to the Cochin Naval Air Station. The current ETA for the first yacht to finish Leg 2 of the race is on Sunday 30th November GMT. The third leg, which takes the fleet of eight Volvo Open 70s to Singapore, is due to start from Cochin on 13th December at 08:30 GMT.

Crews on board the eight racing yachts are from many different countries, including Spain, New Zealand, France, Russia, Sweden, China, Ireland, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Australia, Brazil, United States, Germany, Argentina, Finland and Holland.