2005-09-25
Liverpool wins Race 1
Congestion
1100: After a slow start this morning, Cascais is now experiencing perfect sailing conditions. The sun is shining and it is blowing a steady 20 knots. After the long hours of darkness time is now flying as one boat follows another to the delight of the watching supporters.
Just under three quarters of an hour ago first Singapore then Cardiff appeared around the headland to the west of the marina, well heeled and with kites straining as they surged towards the finish line in marked contrast to the first three finishers. By the time they got to the line just 6 minutes separated the two boats.
We should expect Qingdao and New York to come in equally close as only two miles separated them at 0400 this morning. Latest ETA is around 1800 local time.
At 0614 local time (GMT+1) Liverpool 08 ghosted gently across the finish line off Cascais to win the first race of the Clipper 05-06 Race. Just under half an hour later as the sun was rising, Westernaustralia took second followed 10 minutes later by Durban. These three had been in contention for much of the race, and the relief on Liverpool Skipper Tim Magee’s face was plain to see. The last few hours had been tough on all of them, frustratingly calm as they inched their way towards the finish line, lightweight spinnakers hardly filling as crew struggled to keep them from collapsing completely.
In these conditions being in front can often be the most stressful. One must keep the boat moving at all costs as any loss of momentum is hard to regain. If the boat behind picks a better angle, perhaps not sailing quite as close to the land, they can often make big gains. Indeed Westernaustralia had narrowed the gap to under two miles by the time Liverpool finished. And as day broke the breeze filled in Durban too picked up speed and had a wonderful reach across the line.
Hopefully this filling breeze will continue and help to push the reindexder of the fleet towards the finish. We expect Singapore to lead the next pack in, probably over the next 3 or 4 hours, then the trailing pack will hopefully not be too far behind though realistically we could well be looking at an arrival sometime tomorrow.
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