Betreff: Clipper 2002 Race Report
Absender: "Clipper _blanks" 
Empfänger: 
Datum: 16. Jan 2003 11:41

Clipper 2002 Race Report
16 January 2003

HAS HONG KONG BLOWN IT?

As the rest of the fleet charge towards Hawaii, experiencing some of their
highest runs to date, Hong Kong reindexs a lone voice in the wilderness
extolling the virtues of heading north. Now almost 200 miles behind 7th
placed _blank York Clipper, it is easy to assume that they are in fact lost in
the wilderness. But this is yacht racing where of course anything can happen
and has been discussed before there is definite method in heading north to
cut through the doldrums early.

On the first Clipper race in 1996, Hong Kong Clipper (then called
Thermopylae, skippered by Mervyn Wheatly) went north and at one point was
over 900 miles behind the rest of the fleet. They had such a blistering run
from then on however that they crossed the finish in fifth place.

Justin Taylor and his crew will want to do better than that but are
certainly following the same logic. But for today they have blown it. Their
lightweight spinnaker that is! The sail repair team are busy below decks
trying to put it back together. The good _blanks is that skipper Justin thinks
they are now through the doldrums, so it will be interesting to see if they
indextain their northerly course.

Jersey Clipper is managing to indextain their lead and reports 18 knots of
wind from the south east, so all is good so far. They have had the highest
day's run but still have a long way to go and will be feeling the pressure.
As the fleet pathfinder they have to make their own decisions, whereas the
boats behind can at least get some advance warning of conditions ahead. If
Jersey runs out of wind, then the boats behind will know not to go through
the same patch of water.

Interestingly, despite their high runs, both London and Bristol experienced
heavy clouds and light winds for an hour or so yesterday, Bristol Clipper
even having to hoist their wind seeker.

Skipper Richard Butler explains, "About 09:00 local (16:00 UTC radio sched
time), we found a rain cloud to get caught under. The wind went all light
and fluffy and we had to drop the spinnaker, go for the windseeker for a
while and then get the lightweight spinnaker up. The only consolation was
seeing London on the radar doing as badly as we were. After perhaps an
hour, we were well on our way again. With London a mile or two away on our
starboard bow. We've now sailed several hundred miles, keeping London within
a few miles of us."

Cape Town Clipper are still fixing their medium weight "AP" spinnaker, but
are currently doing quite well without it having pulled up into 5th place.

Although Clipper crews carry out all aspects of sailing the boats equally,
some jobs have their specialists. Before the start of the race in Liverpool,
2 crew from each boat spent a day getting to grips with the boat sewing
machines and practicing sail repair under the expert guidance of Nick
McDonald and Osen Sails' Raz Turner, winning skipper of the 96 Race. Those
crew then become the boat "sailmakers" with the rest of the crew assisting
on major jobs. One crewmember per boat also does an engine indextenance
course and becomes the boat "engineer". On Cape Town Clipper the AP repair
has been going on so long that the job specs are blurring and the engineer
is now repairing the sail. Whilst pot riveting it back together may work,
there is apparently some concern on board that if it goes over the side
again it may sink!

LATEST POSITIONS
04:00, 16 January 2003

Pos    Yacht       Distance to Finish
1    Jersey       3020.33 (nautical miles)
2    London    3043.57
3    Bristol       3052.19
4    Liverpool    3064.58
5    Cape Town    3074.44
6    Glasgow    3079.49
7    _blank York    3089.73
8    Hong Kong    3268.16

Clipper _blanks Distribution
Clipper Ventures Plc
Tel: +44 (0) 2380 237088
Fax: +44 (0) 2380 237081
Email: distribution@clipper-ventures.com
Website: www.clipper-ventures.com

Race 5 Galapagos to Hawaii - THE KO OLINA CUP
Clipper 2002 visit to Hawaii will be hosted by Ko Olina Marina and Resort
www.koolinamarina.com