There is a handful of reasons for this sea change, but perhaps most significant is the decision by satellite communications specialists Inmarsat, France Telecom and Thrane & Thrane to enter sponsorship agreements with the Volvo Ocean Race.

Inmarsat has been the channel of choice in the race for some years, but the sponsors’ decision to become more deeply involved promises an even greater level of commitment than previously.

The companies’ involvement will also bring the benefits of standardisation and upgrades to the equipment to be used on the Volvo Open 70s and ashore. At the same time close co-operation with digital media and transmission specialist Livewire Digital means that installed equipment becomes part of the furniture for the crews.

But, just as important is the fact that the race will see the throttle thrown open on the speed at which large packets of data, such as video, still images and emails, can be transmitted. The Inmarsat service area has also been broadened and two ocean regions will use its latest, ultra-powerful satellites.

None of the providers is a first-timer when it comes to working in the racing sphere, but together, they offer a unique combination of experience.

France Telecom Mobile Satellite product marketing manager Olivier Poinet points out that FTMS “brings expertise and experience gathered over years. We have been a regular technical partner for races such as the Transat Jacques Vabre, Route du Rhum and the Vendée Globe”.

It has forged individual relationships with skippers including Yves Parlier and Catherine Chabaud and with Bruno Peyron onboard his maxi multi-hull, Orange II.

“France is a major sailing nation, so we are ideally suited to partnering. We understand yacht racing and can provide a truly robust and reliable service to every yacht in the race.”

Just as airtime will be handled via just one source, all the terminal equipment on the boats will be made by Thrane & Thrane, which is already the leading provider of hardware to the merchant shipping sector.

And Thrane & Thrane’s Director of Corporate Marketing, Nikolaj Hvegholm claims a similar pedigree in providing race-ready solutions. “In the last Vendée Globe probably about half the installed satcom terminals were ours – that’s a position equivalent to the wider maritime world.”

Thrane & Thrane also supplied equipment to Ellen MacArthur in her successful bid for a new solo circumnavigation record, a process which Hvegholm points out was “a three-year project, so we are confident that we have the experience to deliver for the Volvo. We know what the equipment has to do”.

Hvegholm digresses to mention a successful ascent of Everest in 2000, where a Thrane & Thrane mountaineering team used the equipment during their climb to the summit. “The Southern or Atlantic oceans are like Everest at sea, you are at the same kind of extreme.”

For Inmarsat’s Chris Insall, the next race is about demonstrating for teams, syndicates and viewers that satellite communications has taken a substantial leap forward since the last event.

It will be more than ever about communications and only Inmarsat can meet that requirement,” he says, describing the Volvo Ocean Race as “the Olympic Games of racing. We are there for the whole 31,250 miles.”

All the boats will be equipped with Thrane & Thrane’s Fleet 77 terminal, a smaller Fleet 33 terminal and two Inmarsat-C units but Inmarsat’s introduction last year of an upgrade to Fleet will see potential data throughput on the Fleet 77 terminal doubled to 128 kilobits per second.

The smaller Fleet 33 unit will be used mostly for voice calls, though it will provide more than a little data redundancy. The Inmarsat C units will provide position reporting and distress capabilities.

The entertainment will come via Fleet 77 in the form of 20 minutes of video, and audio interview, emails and more than a dozen images that each boat must transmit every week. Images could easily be 500k-1MB and Insall estimates that the weather data which the boats will be downloading could be 800k-1.5MB.

But though the aim is to entertain, he adds that “safety is the number one requirement and that is at the heart of our infrastructure. There is nothing more fundamental”.

The higher bandwidth capabilities that the new Inmarsat systems will provide should go some way to helping the Volvo Ocean Race lift its target TV audience to one and a half billion this time and Insall thinks the key is allowing them to follow the lives of the team onboard. “There will be a fly-on-the-wall documentary element which is new. Of the seven or more cameras on board, one will be in the head (WC), which will be used as a diary room.”

And it doesn’t come more up close and personal than that.