Clipper 2002/2003 Race - Under pressure
10:22, 18 September 2003
by Sarah Beaugeard

“Lovely sailing today” Not surprisingly the report in from Duty Skipper Simon Rowell is an upbeat one this morning. Not only are the prevailing conditions giving the crews a great sail home but they have let his Jersey team sneak in front of Bristol and into first place by seven miles.

As the fleet continues to track East and towards the UK, they are really being treated to some sailing to remember at present. With a West North Westerly breeze varying from 15 to 27 knots, the fleet is spinnaker sailing and enjoying every minute of it with diaries and reports back of dolphins and more dolphins, moonbows and even some sunshine.

With all of these niceties we mustn’t forget that the fleet are racing under perhaps more pressure than ever. It has been incredibly close racing since the fleet left Halifax, prime example being that this is the first time that there has been more than 10 miles between the first and third boat! As the end of the adventure approaches however many skippers know that they are not just a racing for a pennant this time, podium positions hang in the balance depending on the results of these last races. Richard Butler purveys this quite well writing in his diary today, “I received an email today entitled "This is all too stressy and I am only watching the Leaderboard!"... It’s definitely stressful where I am sitting.”

Back with the fleet positions have remained the same. Everyone covered good mileage since yesterdays report with, interestingly, the back runners Hong Kong, Glasgow and Cape Town having the highest 24 hour runs.

Back sailing under spinnaker, New York have suffered a huge blow, quite literally. “Unfortunately our 1.5 kite is no longer with us” was a sentence that no skipper wants to write. After an accidental broach of the boat, one clew of the sail ripped, and as those of you who have ever witnessed a sail rip will know, once something this large has gone it is very difficult to save the rest of the sail. The report from the boat goes on to say “to cut a long story short there is a lot of kite with New York clipper on it floating around with a spinnaker halyard attached, but every one stayed unharmed and safe we are gutted”

The loss of this sail will undoubtedly see New York’s fifth position jeopardised. The ‘AP’ is named so as it really is an all purpose sail, and the most frequently used of the spinnakers. At present, they have maintained good speeds as the winds are such that the heavy weight kite would also keep them moving well, however the winds are once again forecast to turn lighter as the low that is currently giving the boats these westerly winds looks like it will move moving to the north east.

This change in the weather will also show whether the North South divide that has developed in the fleet will pay off. Studying the weatherfaxes received onboard Bristol Clipper Binks sees that his Northerly position in the fleet is the right place to be “once the low has moved North East, there is a trough in which there will be little wind. It looks as though we might hold the wind for 12 hours longer than the boats further south. Then, on Friday, there will be a northerly air stream developing as the isobars get squeezed between a developing high to the west and a low developing in the trough to the south. This low will move up behind us, causing the wind to head us, so we will be hard on the wind. As it comes round further, we will be able to tack and then, by Saturday, gradually get freed as the wind comes to the south west. If I've got this right, our northerly position will do us no harm at all. If I've got it wrong, I'll just regret writing so much down!”

Once again, all we can do as arm chair sailors is sit back and wait to see whose tactics are right and who Neptune is smiling upon this week. There is still a lot of this story left be written!

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