Clipper Race - Hyde Sails prepares to power world’s longest ocean race

by Julia Wall-Clarke on 25 Nov 2014 The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race has joined forces once again with Hyde Sails to power the fleet for the historic 2015-16 edition, and sail production for the new wardrobe is already well underway.

Chairman and founder of the Clipper Race, Sir Robin Knox Johnston said: 'The Clipper Race is very pleased to welcome Hyde Sails back on board as Official Sails Supplier for our fourth consecutive race partnership.'

'Hyde Sails evolved with us when we introduced the new Clipper 70 fleet in the last race and we were very pleased with how well the new sail wardrobes stood up to almost a year of being tested in the world’s toughest conditions. For this reason, I also chose to use Hyde Sails on my own yacht for the Route du Rhum.'

Sir Robin added: 'We’re very much looking forward to another exciting Clipper Race with Hyde Sails once again powering our teams around the world.'

UK-based Hyde Sails is one of the largest volume sailmakers worldwide, offering service and sales support in every hemisphere, backed up by almost 50 years of expertise in high performance sail technology, design and production.

Production of the Clipper 2015-16 Race wardrobe is well underway at Hyde Sails’ specialist loft, located in the Philippines, and sail testing is scheduled within the next few weeks in the UK.

Hyde Sails Managing Director Nigel Grogan said: 'The Clipper 2015-16 Race will be our fourth consecutive time supplying the fleet’s sail wardrobes. We are delighted to once again have the opportunity to demonstrate practically, under the most demanding test environment we could dream of, that Hyde Sails make yachts sails that go around the world and endure whatever conditions Mother Nature unleashes along the way.'

'Sails are a fundamental ingredient to the yachts success and we continually update the design and technology of our products in order to maximise team performance. We are very confident that our latest generation of sails will provide another fast and exciting Clipper Race series.'

Each of the twelve Clipper 70 yachts carries a sail wardrobe of eleven different sails; including a Mainsail, Staysail, Windseeker, Yankee 1, 2, and 3, plus a heavy, medium and lightweight spinnaker. In total, the combined sail area across the entire fleet is 197,616 square feet. To lay all the sails out flat you would need an area the size of almost three Premiership Football pitches.

The tenth edition of the Clipper Race starts next summer and will take almost a year to complete. At 40,000 nautical miles in length, it is the world’s longest ocean race, also known as one of the toughest endurance challenges on the planet. Uniquely for amateur sailors, over 670 people from more than 40 different nationalities took part in the last race, visiting 16 ports on six continents on the global race circuit. To find out more about the race visit

Clipper 2015-16 Race sail wardrobe updates:
• Dimension changes to Staysails and Asymmetric spinnaker, reducing foot length on staysail to improve sheeting angle, and luff length on spinnakers to help with ease of setting.
• All Asymmetric spinnakers are being fitted with a removable non active sheet retaining system.
• Leech reefs on mainsail see an increase and change to set up in strapping and a change to the layering of material around the area that the eyelet is pressed into.
• Mainsail leech twin ply has increase in weight change in fabric style to improve UV stability and reduce breakdown in material at the transition point between leech tape to body of sail.
• Primary leech tape on mainsail has been increased in width and staggered to again help with the step down from tape to body of sail and reduce risk of fabric failure in this area of the sail.
• Slide spacing on mainsail has been slightly modified.
• Higher load slide eyelets are now being strapped.
• Yankee 1 has had a slight change to mould shape.
• All headsails have had a change to corner ring covering to hopefully improve longevity and give better protection to Corner ring strapping.

Time lapse video of the sail production at Hyde Sails specialist loft in the Philippines.