€43m bonanza from Ocean Race

THE overall cost of the Green Dragon yacht and the Galway Stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race, which begins in the harbour this coming weekend, is more than €23 million – the organisers and main sponsors insist it is money well spent for Ireland and particularly Galway City.There has been a €22 million investment in the Irish entry in the round-the-world race and the staging of the event in Galway in addition to a €1.3 million investment by Galway City Council – the event is expected to generate €43 million for the local economy. It cost a total of €5 million to build the Green Dragon yacht and a further €10 million to fund the running and maintenance of the boat and the team’s crew during the race, which commenced in Alicante last October.The remaining €7 million of the €22 million is for the cost of staging the event including setting up Galway Harbour with stages, tented villages and so on, plus advertising and marketing. An undisclosed amount of the €7 million was paid in 'franchise fees’ to Volvo and the global organisers of the event which was necessary in order for Galway to be chosen as one of the 11 worldwide stopover ports.Fáilte Ireland, the port title sponsor, funded...