Clipper Leg 6: Fleet feels the need for speed

Clipper media/amended

Posted: 8  Feb. 2010

Hull & Humber is match racing Cape Breton Island for the lead - onEdition pic

As the Clipper fleet heads for Qingdao, Cape Breton Island and Hull & Humber are locked in their battle for ascendancy, matching each other mile for mile in the race to the Chinese province and exact base where the sailing component of the Olympic Games took place in 2008.

The scoring gate, off the southern tip of Taiwan, is still some distance away, but the three points for reaching it first are highly prized among the fleet.

Team Finland and Spirit of Australia find themselves in an unfamiliar position at the bottom of the current race standings but, on board, the crews will know that with much more tacking to come, meaning many more position changes.

Rob McInally, Team Finland's skipper says, "The painful tack for us is over for a while, so it's back to the business of going north and, hopefully, east of north at that.

“Wind has been almost strong enough for us to change from a Yankee one to a Yankee two for a while now but it has not been consistently strong enough. This morning the time came and we changed head sails.

“The sea has changed colour, the cloud base is consistent and the sailing is more interesting, to say the least. It would seem now the games will almost begin again as we approach the starboard markers. We hope to up our game and arrive there with some company - more than just Spirit of Australia that is!"

Team Finland's presence close by has meant just one thing for the overall race leaders: "More furious racing on board Spirit of Australia," according to skipper, Brendan Hall, who says, "Team Finland, which has proved to be one of the fastest boats in the fleet, is right on top of us; the distance between us never more than a few miles.

“It's nice to have somebody so close to match ourselves against and, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we’re glad they decided to follow us. The angle of heel is slowly starting to increase with the wind strength, giving us more of a taste of things to come as we head further north."

To the north-west of the Australian and Finnish yachts, the Scottish team is covering the United States entry in similar fashion.

"'It will swing east, it will!' was on the lips of the Edinburgh crew as we headed north and, at last, it seems to have done just that," reports Edinburgh Inspiring Capital's skipper, Matt Pike.

"The wind shift has come just in time as Vietnam gets closer and on the plotter it looked as if we were running out of sea. We now have a course nearer to our rhumbline and the scoring gate, without having to put in a massive losing tack.

“We had a lucky break for a few hours in the night which allowed us to move east and take up station within sight of California for the sprint north."

Edinburgh Inspiring Capital's crew has had very busy night on radar watch as they passed close by a commercial gas field. "For a time we had 21 ships on the AIS," says Pike. "However the morning brought ideal conditions and we're trucking along under full canvas at 7.8 knots in the right direction. Long may it continue!"

Positions at 1200 UTC, Sunday 7 February 2010
1 Hull & Humber DTF 1802
2 Cape Breton Island DTF 1802 DTL +0
3 Jamaica Lightning Bolt DTF 1838 DTL +36
4 Uniquely Singapore DTF 1841 DTL +39
5 Qingdao DTF 1863 DTL +62
6 California DTF 1878 DTL +76
7 Spirit of Australia DTF 1878 DTL +76
8 Edinburgh Inspiring Capital DTF 1881 DTL +79
9 Team Finland DTF 1882 DTL +80
10 Cork Did not start

Positions updated every three hours at: www.clipperroundtheworld.com

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