'The Marvin Plan'
09:47, 17 June 2003
by Sarah Beaugeard

Another milestone has been broken this morning; the fleet now has less than one thousand nautical miles left to sail to get to Cape Town.

The weather has been kind over the last 12hours. Despite many sail changes as the winds continued to fluctuate slightly, all of the boats have been moving nicely and in the majority will be flying spinnakers once more. So it is under partly cloudy skies that the eight boats truck onwards towards Cape Town, sailing around 190miles with Northerly winds of 25 - 30 knots. As the position chart shows, this is not however easy to decide exactly which route to take.

Bristol has managed to hold off their main rivals in the last twenty-four hours of sailing. Still 18miles behind the leaders, Jersey has certainly joined the drag race towards the Agulhas Current. Remembering the three phases of Richards race, he is desperate to win the race to phase two – get to the current first, and start the sleigh ride South. But is 18 miles far enough to hold off Jersey Clipper?

As the two front-runners race west to get to this illusive current, Cape Town and London have both decided to join them, believing ‘west is best’ is the strategy to win with at the moment. Cape Town have coined this as ‘the Marvin plan’ Not sure what happened to the ‘no blame culture’ of the Clipper fleet, but Marvin Sampson, the South African Development sailor, onboard for Leg 5 has willingly put his name to the route he and his skipper believe in. “If we make straight for home then there is every chance that we will encounter strong south westerly winds and on the other hand if we head west, the trip will be longer, but we could enjoy fairer winds which combined with the southerly running Agulhas current could put us in a much stronger position….In the event we have adopted 'The Marvin Plan'! Marvin had spent a considerable amount of time with a calculator and thanks to his in depth analysis managed to persuade the Skipper that a route taking towards a point just south of Durban would be best.”

Not capitulating to ‘the Marvin Plan’ the rest of the fleet have taken a dive South. Cutting the corner could make the distance to travel seem less, but when will they get to the current? Hong Kong Clipper although still in eighth position, they believe that they are firmly back in the race. “We have Cape Town, London and Glasgow firmly within our sights, with 800 miles to go, we are feeling more than optimistic, don’t write us off yet”

Also having a good run of it at the moment are Ross and his crew onboard New York Clipper. A man of few words, Ross seems to be happily sailing along, consistently. Although losing a few miles in the past 12 hours, they should be commended for their race so far – ones to watch…can they hold off their ever present shadow, Liverpool Clipper. Adam will not be keen to lose many more miles in the next day, after having had to sacrifice a bit of speed over the past day to carry out repairs to the headboard of their mainsail. All fixed now, they will be back on the pace and chasing hard.

Finally, the fleet have all reported seeing Albatross over the past few days. With 22 species of these enormous birds in the Southern Oceans, we could have some budding ornithologists by thy time they reach Cape Town.

Source: Clipper 2002/2003 Round The World Race Official Site