• by Jonathan Blum , September 22, 2006

Talk about risk-taking: companies that have traditionally sponsored events bolstering their own images of stability and security have gotten behind an event so dangerous that participants can die: the Volvo Ocean Race.

The last installment of this 31,000-mile sailboat marathon lasted from November, 2005 to June, 2006 and pitted seven high-tech racing yachts against the world's vast oceans.

The sponsors for the race all had well-manicured reputations for safety: Volvo Group, financial services firm ABN AMRO, wireless marketers Ericsson and Motorola, and The Walt Disney Co.

The race paid dividends in terms of excitement and ecological cachet. One of ABN AMRO's vessels smashed a speed record, and the whole fleet visited some of the world's most beautiful places: Tierra del Fuego, the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, and the Kerguelen Islands.

Then, in May, Dutch helmsman and sail trimmer Hans Horrevoets died 2,000 miles offshore, swept overboard from ABN AMRO 2.

The remaining crew heroically retrieved but could not revive Horrevoets. Fate also struck the Spanish yacht Moviestar a few days later, when its canting keel broke away and the crew abandoned the sinking boat.

Still, Volvo and Disney generated positive buzz with an online treasure hunt, in which visitors to volvocars.us/thehunt searched for a buried XC90 V8 sport utility vehicle using clues from Volvo dealer-supplied maps. The site lured 52,000 registered users, Volvo says, and about 25 percent of the online treasure hunters opted in for Volvo product information.

"Sponsoring an ocean race might seem like a long way to go to make a point," says Linda Gangeri, Volvo's manager of national advertising. "But if you do the marketing math, step by step, the race was a great way to get a message out."

The next Volvo Ocean Race will launch in 2008 from Alicante, Spain. Only brave sailors - and sponsors - need apply.