Betreff: Clipper 2002 Race Report
Absender: "Clipper _blanks" 
Empfänger: "Irvin Krumnacker" 
Datum: 07. Jul 2003 13:20

Clipper 2002 Race Report

CAPE TOWN 161 - JERSEY 43

Well, what a day!

Really the mileages say it all. For the overall race leaders on Jersey
Clipper this has not been a good 24 hours as, almost totally becalmed, they
fell from 3rd to 8th in the space of 12 hours. The wind was forecast to
ease, but no one had predicted that it would die off this much. They may
seek some small consolation by looking south towards Glasgow and Hong Kong
who have also had a bad day making only 68 miles a piece and falling one
place each, but what will really hurt is that their closest competitors
overall are now two places ahead of them.

For the team on Bristol Clipper this would have been one of those days when
you think you have done badly, only to find that someone else has come off
worse. They may have gone from 4th to 6th, but have still sailed nearly 60
miles further than Jersey in the last 24 hours and are now considerably
further north, thus potentially in a better tactical location.

A few days ago, Bristol skipper Richard Butler predicted that _blank York
Clipper was possibly in the best tactical position and how right they were.
Skipper Ross Daniel had gambled on making progress to the north in
preference to the early gains made by those who sailed more to the west and
this now looks to have paid off.

Not only have they stormed into first place, they are still well to the
north of the rest of the fleet and are poised to outflank all bar Cape Town.
Which brings us to our wild card! Having retired from Race 12 on the way
into his home port, Cape Town Skipper Roger Steven-Jennings wanted to prove
they could do better. They too were looking at a long term strategy by
heading north and had felt the pain by sitting in last place for the past
few days, but now the picture looks much brighter. They have already climbed
2 places to overtake Bristol and Liverpool, but their performance over the
last 24 hours should almost guarantee a further improvement.

Whilst we in the race office work to local UK time, the boats work on ship's
time, which changes as they race around the world. They then relate this
back to GMT. With the fleet currently on the same longitude as the UK,
ship's time is the same as UK (not counting British Summer Time) for the
first time since leaving Liverpool. This means that the 03:00 position
reports are exactly that - at 03:00, and there has been a noticeable
increase recently in enthusiasm from skippers to delegate this task to the
crew.

This actually makes a nice change as the chat with the position reports
often gives a different flavour to life on board. This morning however Duty
Skipper Adam Kyffin sent the report from Liverpool himself and his words go
some way to express the mixture of frustration and hopefulness on board. "We
are unfortunately still stuck in this awful wind hole making sailing very
difficult. Looking at the positions the boats in the North appear to have
got it right. We are all praying for wind and it might stop me moaning.
Hopefully give you more exciting _blanks soon. Nothing to report from other
boats apart from not surprisingly Simon (Jersey Skipper) reports a glassy
sea!"

Clipper 2002 - Race 13 Positions
03:00, 7 July 2003

Pos     Yacht        Distance to Finish (nautical miles)
1     _blank York     2,171
2     Glasgow      2,177
3     Hong Kong      2,182
4     London      2,191
5     Cape Town     2,196.9
6     Bristol         2,197
7     Liverpool     2,225
8     Jersey          2,244

Clipper _blanks Distribution
Clipper Ventures plc
Tel SA: +27 (0) 214 213243
Tel UK: + 44 (0) 23 8023 7088
Fax UK: +44 (0) 23 8023 7081
Email: lspridgeon@clipper-ventures.com
Website: www.clipper-ventures.com

Clipper 2002 Round the World Yacht Race
Race 13 Cape Town to Salvador ETA 21/07/03