Poll: Who will win the Volvo Ocean Race?

Will it be one of the form boats, one of the newcomers or one of the dark horses? Vote now!

For the first time in its 43 year history, the next Volvo Ocean Race is being raced in one design VO65s, and the outcome of the race will be entirely down to the efforts of each crew, rather than the usual formula of who has the best boat speed and breaks least.

So who will win the 2014-5 race? Form and a look at the crew line-ups suggest that Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, Team Brunel and Team Espana are the form boats, all with top personnel and already possessing massive experience in the fully crewed race.

But what of the dark horses? 

Dongfeng Race Team has many ingredients from Franck Cammas' Groupama campaign, winner of the last race, but carries the worthy cause, but competitive drawback, of also being used to train up Chinese sailors.

Team Alvimedica has an experienced crew, but young and inexperienced (when it comes to big campaigns and round the world racing) leadership.

The all-female crew on Team SCA remains an unknown - with more preparation and training time going into this race and able to carry more people on board (11 rather than 8). But as skipper Sam Davies reports, they start from a much, much lower level than the boy's teams. 

Team Vestas Wind again has one of the best crews in the race, but was the last team to sign-up. Will lack of training and preparation time make a difference? The team's victory in Leg 0 indicated not...

What do you think? See the Facebook thread here