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NEWS
Clipper fleet flying up the coast
Aussie skipper doing well in home watersThe Clipper Round the World fleet is flying along in The Henri Lloyd Hobart to Whitsundays Race. The front runners are under a thousand nautical miles from the finish line and Da Nang – Viet Nam maintaining a narrow lead with only 30nm separating the top eight teams.
Sydney7-based skipper of Da Nang – Viet Nam Skipper Wendy Tuck is very familiar with these waters which potentially gives her the advantage. Having got the taste of victory in the Clipper Race Class in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race she appears determined to lead her crew to another Australian podium.
Further out to sea, GREAT Britain was first through the Scoring Gate followed just 26 minutes later by LMAX Exchange, taking three and two points respectively. The final point went to Derry~Londonderry~Doire.
However, the big tactical gamble is whether these teams can still claw back their positions in the fleet having lost ground by taking on the Scoring Gate: "They have sacrificed their position in the fleet to get the extra points," observed Race Director Justin Taylor.
"But even with the inshore teams surging on, it is more likely that these yachts will encounter the East Australian Current which will hamper their progress."
Derry~Londonderry~Doire Skipper Dan Smith seems to have sacrificed a lot by going for the Scoring Gate and was in twelfth place. He reported: "We ended up a lot harder on the wind than we thought we would for this one and we will need to see whether it was worth it because fighting the wind out to the east may have cost us race positions."
ClipperTelemed+ Skipper Matt Mitchell and his crew conceded they were going to be beaten to the Scoring Gate and aborted the attempt in order to gain a small advantage to effectively undertake the Northern Irish entry: "We were only a few miles from the Scoring Gate when the wind started becoming shifty making our heading towards the gate a slow course to maintain, so we decided to bear away and start tracking northwards." So far this decision has paid off and the team is now sitting in eleventh place less than 20nm closer to the finish than Derry~Londonderry~Doire.
As the inshore/offshore debate continues GREAT Britain is some 150nm east of Garmin which is taking the most westerly inshore route.
Meanwhile, Mission Performance has diverted from its racing course to offer aid to a non-Clipper Race yacht which had a crew member stuck at the top of the mast for over two hours.
"We received a call from both Foster Marine Rescue and M3, a TP52 yacht," explains skipper, Greg Miller.
"We were the closest vessel to the TP52 yacht and have offered our assistance. We are currently motoring towards the TP52.
"We have a doctor on board who may be required for the man up the mast."
All crew on Mission Performance are all ok.
Clipper Race meteorologist Simon Rowell says that a low pressure system is developing which will move over the coast in the next 24 to 48 hours: "It’s a very tightly formed low, and as such will have quite different wind directions depending where you are in the fleet. As it’s an unstable low the South West quadrant of the system will probably see gusts of 60 knots, particularly on Wednesday and Thursday as the system gets offshore and starts to pick up more moisture."
For more information and to follow the race on the tracker go to: https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com.
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Written byBoatsales Staff
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