AROUND ALONE TO RESTART 14TH OCTOBER AT 1200HRS
Torbay, England 13th October – Clipper Ventures plc, race organisers of Around Alone 2002-03, are announcing today at a special press conference in the race village that the restart of Leg 2 is scheduled to take place at 12pm on Monday 14th October. After consulting a variety of weather sources, the outlook for tomorrow is much more clement, with a forecast WNW Force 4 prevailing at the time of the rescheduled start.
The decision to postpone the restart, taken yesterday evening by the Race Organisation, was clearly the right one, as today there is a Force 6 Easterly wind over the bay, and the Met Office are predicting this to increase to Gale Force 9 later on today. The Brixham Coastguard, Reg Hill, commented: “This is an East facing bay, which becomes very dangerous in an onshore Easterly gale. We had serious concerns for the safety of the spectators and their boats and strongly advised the Race Organisers to postpone the start of Around Alone.”
Race Chairman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston said: “Our primary concern was for the safety of the skippers and teams of volunteers commissioned to assist getting their boats to the start line. The last thing we wanted for this wonderfully hospitable community was to have a serious incident.”
Canadian skipper John Dennis (Bayer Ascensia) voiced the reaction of the skippers: “It’s a smart decision. We’ve got a long race around the world, so why take a chance on some very violent weather, which might damage our boats getting out of the harbour.”
American skipper Tim Kent (Everest Horizontal) explained why it was dangerous to start in these conditions: “There’s no point going out in this kind of weather. It’s not that the boats cannot handle this kind of weather in the open sea, but the bay here in an Easterly gale is a dangerous trap.”
RESTART DAY PROGRAMME 14th OCTOBER
07:45 - 08:15am A service will be held by the Fishermens Mission on the pontoons for half an hour to send off the skippers.
08:00 - 10:00 am The boats will start motoring out two by two, starting from Open 40's first, from 8am onwards from the Brixham Marina. Each boat will then moor alongside the welcome pontoon off the Brixham Yacht Club in pairs, in order to have their engine's sealed. Then they will be towed out to the starting area where they will then set sails.
12:00pm The start line is 200 yards off the edge of the Brixham Harbour breakwater. There will be a simplified start procedure now in the Southern end of the bay.
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For more information contact:
Media Relations: Mary Ambler, Media Manager - Tel: +44 (0) 2380 237 088 - Mob: +44 (0) 7887 643 583 - Email: mambler@clipper-ventures.com
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