May 4, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland – Today Baltimore will say goodbye to the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06 as the fleet heads off on a Parade of Sail to Annapolis.

The teams arrived from Rio de Janeiro on the 17th April and have spent over two weeks in Baltimore’s Inner Harbour. Whilst there, they have attracted a record numbers of crowds.

Nearly 350,000 people descended on the Inner Harbour for the waterfront festival held in celebration of the race.

Tourism officials estimated that half a million guests would attend both the Baltimore and Annapolis stopovers, which means that the crowd estimates during the weekend of the in-port race exceeded all expectations.

Visitors waited for more than an hour to access the dockside where the Volvo Open 70 yachts were berthed and enjoyed many of the activities going on in the race village such as the winch grinding, the team’s pavilions and the LEGO Volvo XC90, which took three weeks to design and comprises of over 201,425 standard LEGO bricks.

Spectators were also treated to the awesome site of the Volvo Extreme 40 catamarans whizzing around the inner harbour as they competed in the Volvo Extreme 40 grand prix series.

At 12 noon today (local) the boats will leave on the Parade of Sail to Annapolis where they are expected to be welcomed by a large crowd both out on the water and dockside.

The seven entries in the race will spend two full days in Annapolis before departing on Sunday 7 May on leg six to Portsmouth, England via a pit-stop in New York. The boats are expected to arrive into New York between the 8-9 May, departing again for England on the 11 May.

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