Hey everyone, Chris here tonight. Tonight all six of us checked out the Boston stop over of the Volvo Ocean Race at Fan Pier. The event, and all activities in the village are free. Food, well that’s a different story and I’ll touch on that later.
First, a little about the race. These crews of 11 are racing 70 foot carbon fiber masterpieces of technology. They are gorgeous. These boats and crew started this grueling journey last October in Alicante Spain and will finish in June in St. Petersburg Russia after having traveled 37,000 nautical miles and sailing for over 2,600 hours at speeds in excess of 30 knots.
There is ample parking in the area. Prices range is around 10-12 dollars. We lucked out and found a spot on the street.
We started our visit with a trip to The Dome where we watched a great film which provided a fantastic overview of the race and it’s history. The film was about 9 minutes long. Next up: The Ride. This short, under 5 minute sailing simulator ride was a hit with the boys and had some amazing extreme sailing footage. Watch out for that ocean spray as you break through a swell!
Next up was a real workout. The grinders on these boats exert an amazing amount of energy to put up and trim the sails on this tremendous boats. Well, you can take a turn and see how quickly you can get that sail raised. Be careful, it starts out pretty easy, but once you get close to the finish, you really need to work it. Jill and I went head to head and so did Alex and Zack, who eventually needed help from their little brothers 
Harder than it looks boys!
After all of the interactive stuff, we made are way over to check out the 8 boats. WOW! I think it was unanimous. They are massive and very impressive even when tied to the pier. Menacing and beautiful at the same time.
At this point, little mouths needed to be fed so we sucked it up and hit the food tent. People were very nice and the selection was pretty good. Pricing wise, I guess it is what you would expect for a venue like this. $67 for the six of us: 4 hot dogs, chips, drinks, 2 sandwiches, 2 cokes and 4 waters. Oh well. Our suggestion is to bring a cooler/picnic lunch as there was no one checking bags. You could either eat at some of the picnic tables or on the grass or seawall along the Harbor Walk.
There are pavilions sponsored by Volvo, Ericsson and Puma and Tourism Ireland. There are some great bands scheduled to play this weekend at the Ireland Waterfront Festival which runs Friday to Saturday and is serving as a kickoff to the leg 7 which will see the boats race to Galway. We checked out the Puma pavilion which was ok and contained the only shop where you could purchase race related stuff.
All in all, this is a great family event at a great venue. It was a beautiful night. I would give a 4 out of 5.
The Village is open: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00am t0 12:00 am. The start of Leg 7 is Saturday from 12pm – 2:30pm. Have fun. We highly recommend this one! Check out the Volvo Ocean Race Boston site for the schedule and all the details.
