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Nearly 50 teams have expressed an interest in taking part in the next edition of the Volvo yacht race around the world scheduled for 2011-12 said the director of the event, Norway's Knut Frostad.

"From a competitive sense we have close to 50 teams at various levels that are interested," he said in an interview published on the site of the Volvo race.

"There are a lot of names that I always wanted to see in this race that are now interested in getting on the start line," he added.

The tenth edition of the race, which was won by Sweden's Ericsson 4 last month, only had eight participating teams at the start.

Organisers have said they hope to increase the number of participants to at least a dozen for the next edition.

Most of the teams that participated in the 2008-09 race, including Spain's Telefonica, Sweden's Ericsson and Puma of the United States, intend to participate in 2011-12, Frostad said.

There will be only seven or eight stages for the 2011-12 event, which will again leave from the Spanish port of Alicante, where the Volvo Ocean Race has established its headquarters, and will last a maximum of eight months.

The stages will be announced in late March 2010 from a list of 34 candidate ports.

"We have had a huge response from ports around the world wanting to become part of the next race. We have undertaken a thorough review of the race and sought feedback from a number of stakeholders," said Frostad.

AFP