Clipper Round The World Yacht Race – Close racing on Day 4

by Clipper Ventures on 23 Feb 2014 On day four of race nine in the Clipper Round The World Yacht Race 2013-14 the wind has built and there is some very close racing between the teams as they attempt to find the best angles to head north and towards the scoring gate.

Headsail changes have been carried out as the wind increased to around 25 knots and the crews beat upwind at a steep angle. Old Pulteney is now leading the fleet, followed by Derry~Londonderry~Doire one mile behindand Henri Lloyd in third just three miles behind.

Old Pulteney skipper Patrick van der Zijden said: 'Another day on a 35 degrees angle, and the wind kicked up even more this morning giving us a nice full six Beaufort wind to play with. It is day four of this race and the ‘Navigator’ (the nickname for our boat) is ploughing through the waves on the way to the Scoring Gate, in a straight line only 350 miles away, but the way we are beating upwind this will be more than 450 miles which means about two and half days. The fleet came back together last night and it is still very close racing.'

Great Britain, Mission Performance and PSP Logistics have chosen a more easterly course than the rest of the fleet. Skipper of Mission Performance Matt Mitchell explains the last 24 hours racing:'The fleet looks to be converging in earnest with those of us whom stayed further south making easterly progress to start making our gains on those that went north early.

'The clock is also reading less than 2,000 miles to go which is great to see, though to give you an idea of the slog of upwind sailing we have in fact sailed around 800 miles to gain 450 miles towards the finish.'

POSITION / TEAM		DTL
1	Old Pulteney	0NM
2	Henri Lloyd	2NM
3	Derry~Londonderry~Doire	11NM
4	Qingdao	8NM
5	GREAT Britain	87NM
6	Switzerland	43NM
7	One DLL	110NM
8	Team Garmin	26NM
9	Invest Africa	36NM
10	PSP Logistics	84NM
11	Mission Performance	70NM
12	Jamaica Get All Right	165NM