Oceanracing - Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race

Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race
www.clipper-ventures.com - Übersicht

Saturday, 10th June 2006
Clipper HQ Media Team Newsletter
Hola Panama!
Photo by: Colin de Mowbray
The first three of the Clipper fleet arrived in Panama City on a very wet Saturday morning, 24 days after departing on Race 8 from Victoria.

The Canadian entry was the first to pull into Flamenco Marina at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal at 0900 local time. After winning into their home port last month, the Ewan Hind and his crew were keen to get in first again despite finishing 6th overall in the last race. Coming alongside in a torrential downpour, the crew were glad to step ashore and taste their first local beer, the aptly named Panama, after over three weeks at sea. Next to pull into the marina was Durban Clipper, who finished in 2nd place in Race 8. The South African entry skippered by Craig Millar was just an hour behind Victoria, but the worst of the rain had cleared by the time they arrived. In Panama, the weather is a real hotch potch, with bright sunshine one moment and bucketing with rain the next. The crews have become accustomed to this tropical weather over the last couple of weeks, and arrived in a mixture of bikinis, shorts and oilskins.

But the stars of the show were Richard Falk and the crew of Uniquely Singapore, the winners of Race 8, who arrived at around 1100 local time. This is the Singaporeans first win and over a week of motor sailing since the finish and the incessant rain had not dampened their spirits. Once they were moored up, the jubilant team celebrated by spraying half a dozen bottles of champagne over each other and savoured their first ever victory.

New York is expected at around 1600 local time on Saturday, Liverpool and Cardiff latest ETA is around 0800 local time on Sunday. westernaustralia.com, Glasgow, Qingdao and Jersey are expected on Sunday evening. Deep cleans and indextenance are now underway on the boats, and the first batch of five yachts are scheduled to transit the Canal on Monday. The reindexing group of five is expected to go through to the Atlantic on Tuesday. Race 9 is scheduled to start on 15th June.