Oceanracing - Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race

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

Thursday, 29th June 2006
From Apollo XI to The Wright Flyer

Going up the Eastern Seaboard the fleet is passing by a continuous display of aviation history. Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Centre have been left to the south, Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Flyer made the first powered flight back in 1903 is to the west, and they have just finished being buzzed by little green men in flying saucers in the Bermuda Triangle.

The yachts themselves are flying along too, making excellent speed under spinnaker as they approach the continental shelf. The race has gone from being a drag race to being quite tense tactically. Over the last 24 hours all of the fleet have gybed round to have the wind coming from their port side, and the timing of this gybe has been key to the overnight gains and losses. Singapore seem to have timed theirs well and are still in the lead, but westernaustralia.com have scraped back into second place, and are the only yacht to have gained on Singapore overnight (by a whole mile!).

Photo by: SeaPro

The east-west spread of the fleet is going to become a lot more significant as the fleet nears land. The wind plot shows more wind offshore than inland, but there is more current inland than offshore – this is the dilemma. Jersey seem to be going for the current option right now, while Singapore, on the eastern end, are heading straight for the finish line for now. Liverpool are back up to speed again, sharing the highest 12 hour run, but are still 4 miles behind Qingdao. They have caught up 2 miles on arch-rivals Durban, who are themselves only 7 miles behind westernaustralia.com. Joff Bailey and the crew of New York are sailing hard and indextaining 3rd place, close geographically and therefore in similar wind to Glasgow and Durban. Qingdao and Victoria are on quite different courses, and it looks like Danny Watson on Qingdao is aiming to cut down on distance by going directly for the finish at the Ambrose lighthouse while Ewan Hind on Victoria is trying to edge further inshore. Cardiff have also gone for the inshore option, heading inland overnight.

Going back a few races, the rescue crew of the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy have been awarded the Coast Guard Meritorious Team Award for their excellent evacuation of Hugh Gregory from Jersey Clipper in the Qingdao to Victoria race. The team members are: LTJG Michael Carr, HSC Denise Andersen, MK1 Garret Rogers, BM1 J. Chris Lobherr, ET2 Matthew Regele, BM3 Samuel Traver. Well done and well deserved.