GREAT Britain regains Clipper Race lead

(April 27, 2014) – As the wind starts to get lighter and the temperature starts to increase in the Clipper Race, the competition continues to heat up for the fleet as the dying breeze sees the teams work overtime in stifling conditions, desperate to eke out even the slightest advantage over their nearest competitors.

GREAT Britain has regained the lead in Race 11, positioned offshore of Manzanillo, Mexico with 1600 nm to the finish in Panama. Switzerland continues to put on an impressive performance in second place, doing it all it can to keep Team Garmin, OneDLL and Derry~Londonderry~Doire at bay as the fleet passes the entrance to the Gulf of California.

After emerging from Stealth Mode yesterday at 06:00 UTC and climbing into second place, skipper of Switzerland, Vicky Ellis left her team simple but important instructions at watch changeover. Vicky explains in her skipper report today:

“After a gybe and two kite peels I finally turned in and left the crew some important instructions – don’t let Derry~Londonderry~Doire, Team Garmin or OneDLL over take us!”

Meanwhile at the other end of the leaderboard Rich Gould, skipper of Invest Africa continues south east as his team do everything possible to keep moving at a steady speed. Rich explains the importance of ensuring his team perform perfect evolutions, as any time lost changing a kite means miles lost on the leaderboard:

“Today I ran through the steps of setting up and executing both a full peel and a half peel with the team. The further south we go and the lighter the wind gets the more important it is going to be that we are able to change between kites in a seamless manner. When we do our next kite change we will attempt a full peel, watch this space.”

As OneDLL, Team Garmin and Derry~Londonderry~Doire continue the Race 11 battle that has ensued since they challenged for the Scoring Gate points, skipper of Team Garmin, Jan Ridd describes an incident which demonstrates just how tense the competition is becoming:

“I was woken by the crew on watch and asked to check the Clipper Race Sailing Instructions (rules) as they firmly believed that Derry~Londonderry~Doire were flying a sail illegally. So I checked myself (with bleary eyes) and it really did look like they were flying a Yankee with the spinnaker, so I quickly sent an email to Derry~Londonderry~Doire and asked them if that were the case and pointed out the relevant section in the SI’s. As soon as I hit send the crew reported back that they were in fact peeling their spinnaker, so I quickly got on the VHF and apologized to Sean.”

Report by event media.

Skipper reports: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/skipper-reports
Race tracker: http://yb.tl/clipper2013-race11
Race website: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com

Background:
The 40,000 mile Clipper 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race began in London, UK on September 1 for the fleet of twelve identical Tony Castro designed Clipper 70s.

Twelve teams started the 3,350 mile leg from San Francisco, USA to Panama on April 19, and are expected to arrive by May 10.

The race route includes Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Albany, Sydney, Hobart and Brisbane, Australia; Singapore; Qingdao, China; San Francisco, USA; Panama; Jamaica; New York, USA; Derry-Londonderry, Ireland; and Den Helder, Netherlands before returning to London in July.