Liverpool 08 benefits from southerly route

by Clipper event media on 26 Jun 2008 Liverpool 08’s early decision to stay south is paying off with a run of over 120 nautical miles in the last 12 hours.

This has moved the team into third place and they may well sling shot around the leaders over the next 24 hours and could end up with a healthy lead coming into Cork. New York, Qingdao and Hull & Humber are still battling it out further north. 'It’s been a long slow night with light airs and drizzle,' says Hull & Humber skipper, Danny Watson. 'Thankfully the wind picked up with daybreak.'

Willing Liverpool 08 not to move any further up the leaderboard is the Chinese entry, Qingdao. Skipper Marcus Cholerton-Brown explains, 'We always knew Liverpool 08 would come in towards the end by taking the more southerly route, the question is by how much? They are our closest competition in terms of overall points, we have to beat them to move up.'

Also benefiting from a more southerly course is westernaustralia2011.com. The Western Australian team’s impressive run over the past 24-hours has moved them out of tenth place, a nice birthday present for the team’s skipper, Martin Silk, who celebrated his 40th birthday yesterday. Martin says, 'With no shortage of breeze on the Atlantic, we’ve changed down to a poled out Yankee Two as gusts reach 35 knots. Our ‘bullet proof’ heavy weight has done us proud and it seems a shame to risk any damage, especially with 700 miles of downwind sailing to go. Seas have gradually picked up and with occasional wind shifts the boat is rolling uncomfortably. Our southerly route, albeit too late, is paying dividends and although we appear to have moved into ninth position, we’ll need more than luck to make up another. Undeterred the team aboard is driving the boat hard and striving to make that happen as we average over 10 knots in the right direction. Being my birthday, I was even allowed to steer for an hour making a pleasant change from pondering over synoptic charts and GRIB files and failing miserably to arrive at an exit strategy. I believe there may be 50 miles to play for in the last 24 hours depending on how the low pressure and wind strategy pan out.'

With not very far to go to the finish, the next big challenge that the skippers and tacticians will be considering is how to approach the coast of Ireland. The options are either inshore or offshore. To make the shortest approach and hug the coast for the last 90 nautical miles and risk the vagaries of coastal winds and sea breezes or take a slightly more offshore route and keep steady and more reliable winds but sail further.

Joff Bailey, Race Director, says, 'The race for the overall Clipper 07-08 Race positions all depends on how the yachts finish relative to each other. The two interesting battles going on are between Hull & Humber and New York and between Qingdao and Liverpool 08. Hull & Humber really needs to be ahead of New York to help their chances otherwise every position lost now will be a position they have to gain in Race 14. Now that Liverpool 08 has found the turbo button and are within sight of Qingdao the battle is becoming interesting. Laying fifth and sixth overall and only separated by one point they are both tussling to move up the overall leaderboard. With Durban 2010 and Beyond only a couple of points ahead and currently laying in seventh place in this race either of these teams could claim fourth place overall. Time is running out for Hannah [Jenner] and her team on Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper, they are reasonably secure in third place overall but they need to be ahead of both Hull & Humber and New York if they wish to improve that. With only 600 nautical miles left and a 50 nautical mile deficit it is still possible, but the odds are against them and increasing.'

Skipper of Glasgow: Scotland with style, Hannah Jenner, says, ' A note to Neptune: if you throw one more wind hole at us there is going to be big trouble! We have officially had enough of getting stopped and watching the others sail away!'

The winds forecast over the next few days look very favourable for the whole fleet with two low pressure systems sweeping north bringing excellent south westerly winds that should bring the whole fleet to Cork, Ireland during Sunday 29 and Monday 30 June.

POSITIONS AT 0600 GMT 26 JUNE 2008

1. Qingdao: Distance To Finish (DTF) 545
2. New York: DTF 545, (Distance To Leader 0)
3. Liverpool 08: DTF 551, (+6)
4. Hull & Humber: DTF 555, (+10)
5. Uniquely Singapore: DTF 568, (+23)
6. Jamaica: DTF 587. (+42)
7. Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper: DTF 599, (+54)
8. Durban 2010 and Beyond: DTF 615, (+70)
9. westernaustralia2011.com: DTF 676, (+131)
10.Nova Scotia: DTF 706, (+161)

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