This seemed a little bold when it was announced today.

The 2014/15 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, the nine-month, round-the-world exercise by the most intrepid and hardiest of sailors, plans to have all seven entrants sail the entire distance.

As opposed to the previous Volvo race, three years ago, when the prevalence of piracy off the coast of east Africa — specifically offshore of Somalia — led to the fleet being loaded onto armed container ships while in the region.

Coming into the Gulf, as well as going out.

I had an idea of how to deal with the situation, back in 2011: Arm the Volvo boats and let them fight their way past pirates! As boats did in the Age of Sail.

This time round, organizers believe the threat of piracy in the region has fallen off significantly, citing the decline of 14 hijackings in 2012 to two in 2013, and they expect the boats will be able to remain under sail throughout.

How did it go down in 2011?

At the time, the race said the fleet was sailing to a “secret” location. I remember thinking it probably was somewhere in Tanzania or Mozambique.

Turns out, the leg from Cape Town was much longer — all the way to Male, the capital of the Maldives, southwest of the tip of India.

That is where the five boats active, at that moment, were loaded, shipped into the Gulf, put back into the water at Sharjah, just north of Dubai in the UAE, and then they raced south into port at Abu Dhabi.

On the way out, they raced out of Abu Dhabi port, were again loaded on a mother ship, probably again at Sharjah, and returned to Male — where they resumed the race.

We know about that because Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s boat, Azzam, was part of the fleet — and Abu Dhabi was a port of call.

This time, though VOR officials say they want the race to be wind-powered from start to finish, they concede that the fleet will not just cruise past Somalia with land a few miles to port.

They will go out deeper into the Indian Ocean, putting hundreds of miles between the fleet and Somalia.

All of which seems a fair compromise.

The fleet should remain under sail around the world — as opposed to riding in the hold of some massive motorized vessel for a part of it.

Just like Magellan did it (or most of it) nearly 500 years ago.