The unveiling coincided with Boston's announcement that it will be one of the official ports of call during the nine-month Volvo Ocean Race that begins in Alicante, Spain in October 2008 and finishes in Northern Europe in June 2009. The Boston stop will be in mid-May 2009 and will include a fortnight of festivities and local events to celebrate Boston's maritime history, the sport of sailing and the Volvo Ocean Race.

A point-scoring in-port race will be held in Boston Harbour if the wind is in a favourable direction. Alternatively the race will be held just outside the harbour.

A pro-am race, which takes place in every host port the day after the in-port race, will be held inside the harbour with racing close by to Fan Pier and Rowes Wharf. The pro-am race is not a points scoring race and does not have a set course enabling it to be tailored to suit each venue and making it a close-to-shore spectator event.

Every boat in the Volvo fleet will take part, and will be sailed by half its normal race crew, with the remainder being made up of specially invited guests.

The exterior design of the training boat is uniquely PUMA. Conceptualized by Puma's brand head, Antonio Bertone, with the help of ad agency GBH, the idea was to transform the boat into an object. In this particular case, the object is a shoe, taking inspiration from PUMA's heritage.

"We wanted to have some fun with the design -- basically have a floating shoe out on the water," says Antonio Bertone, Group Functional Head Brand & Marketing. "So we had the boat painted to look like it's made from leather and then stitched together. The boat and the Volvo Ocean Race on the whole is just a great platform for PUMA to express its creativity and design-forward thinking."

More, including photos of the boat, at http://www.volvooceanrace.org