A service of blessing took place on board the Russian boat Kosatka in Alicante late last week. It was a matter of debate, though, who most needed divine protection after a collision in the first inshore race a week ago had left Team Russia and a rival boat, Delta Lloyd, in need of extensive repairs.

Every member of the eight crews in the 10th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, which started yesterday from Alicante, will need some luck to survive the next eight months aboard the latest generation of 70-foot flyers that are capable of surfing the most savage waters on the planet at speeds of 45mph.

Three boats in the last race broke the 24-hour crewed mono-hull record, which now stands at 563 nautical miles. But the rate of attrition was equally dramatic: two boats broke on the first night and one, Movistar, sank later in the Atlantic after persistent keel failure.

“These boats can rip you to shreds if you let them,” said Ken Read, skipper of the US challenger Puma, last week. “But we can break these boats. There’s got to be a balance between guts and sheer stupidity. Sometimes you have to back off, which is always the hardest decision for a skipper.”

Whatever they said at their final press conference before yesterday’s start, the eight skippers are unlikely to be any more cautious than their predecessors, stretching back to the first race in 1973. In contrast to the early adventuring days of the Whitbread, the Volvo now is part sail race, part trading mission. Corporate logos are emblazoned on sails and hulls; winning and losing is inextricably linked to the bottom line on a corporate balance sheet. “I doubt if there will be much holding back,” said Ian Walker, the one British skipper.

Lured by the potential of developing markets, Ericsson and Telefonica have each invested an estimated £40m in their two-boat programmes. Puma have become the first sportswear company to become involved in the race, launching a range of merchandise from their containerised shop on the quayside in Alicante.

The shifting tectonic plates of the global economy have made a return on investment a necessity. No longer are crews fortified in the lead-up to the race by a pie and a pint; they wear heart monitors to analyse stress and follow individually tailored training programmes. Navigators pore over 60 years’ worth of weather data. The Ericsson team have been training together for two years; Puma for the past 18 months, honing their team spirit with robust games of ice hockey and some heated political debate. The crew all have absentee ballots for the American presidential election but Read was still racked by indecision 24 hours before the start of the race.

For the first time, the race has stopovers in India (Cochin) and China (Qingdao) and a finish in Russia (St Petersburg) in June, which means less time in the Southern Ocean and more time crossing the equator (six times in all). “In one way, it’s a much tougher route,” says Michael Woods, the manager of Team Russia. “You’re going into the monsoon season in India and into winter, with the wind against the current, into Qingdao. If a front comes through, you just have to battle through it. You can’t avoid it.”

Chinese money has also helped to buttress the Green Dragon syndicate, funded initially by the Irish government. In return Guo Chuan, the media specialist on the Dragon, will become the first Chinese crew member in the Volvo. “They said, ‘If you give us one sailor, I can give you 200m Chinese supporters’,” said Walker, the double Olympic medallist. “It seemed like a good deal.”

Yesterday, as the eight boats left the pontoon in Alicante, the scenes of organised chaos and emotional farewell were familiar to all professional sailors. The name of Hans Horrevoets, who died on the last race, is buried deep in the psyche, a reminder of the need to balance speed with safety.

With the start imminent, every skipper and shore manager swears their boat is ready, but some are very much more ready than others. Only the two-boat teams and Puma have put in the hard development miles, but no skipper knows the true potential of his boat. “We might be sitting on a rocket ship, but until we get out there we don’t really know,” said Walker. His initiation in the ways of the Volvo 70 came on a recent qualifying run in the Fastnet race. “We were doing 30 knots, the whole thing was underwater, I couldn’t even see what sails we had up,” he said. “I thought: ‘This is insane’.” Every one of the 88 crew members will understand the feeling by the finish in St Petersburg next summer.

Rick Deppe, media specialist on Puma, said: “I was a cameraman on Deadliest Catch [a documentary series about deep-sea fishermen], but this is 100 times more difficult. My job is to produce two to three minutes of video documentary and a minimum of 200 words of commentary every 48 hours to feed back to Volvo headquarters. I’m not allowed to help sail the boat, which is frustrating.

“The Volvo 70 is a horrible place to be, relentless and noisy even when there’s no wind. The crew get it, though, they know who pays their wages, but when an annoying little jerk sticks a camera in their faces at a difficult moment it might be different. I have no idea what it’s going to be like.”