Inside the ultimate endurance challenge: 40,000 miles, zero experience
by Clipper Race 22 May 23:30 AEST
Ten teams, led by a professional skipper and first mate, but crewed by ordinary people, race around the world © Clipper Race
What drives someone with no sailing experience to sign up for one of the toughest endurance challenges on the planet? For hundreds of participants in each edition of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, the answer is rarely simple, but usually lies somewhere between the sense of adventure, personal growth and the pursuit of something far bigger than everyday life.
Founded in 1995 by sailing legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who was the first person to sail solo, non-stop around the world, the Clipper Race breaks down the barriers to ocean racing, taking people from all walks of life and training them to race the world's oceans.
"I'm always looking for something. I'm always looking for a challenge. I love expeditions, muti-day trips. Cycling, hiking, kayaking, whatever it is." said Paddy Moran, who was a 36-year old freelance camera assistant when he set out to sail around the world on the race's 2023-24 edition.
For Paddy, the decision was instinctive. He recalled thinking: "They'll train me, teach me to sail these boats and go race around the world? Yeah, that's an opportunity too good to miss."
Currently in its 14th edition, the Clipper Race is a 40,000 nautical mile (46,000 mile/ 74,000km) route raced by ten teams on identical stripped-back purpose-built 70ft racing yachts. Led by a professional Race Skipper and First Mate, the teams race around the clock for up to 30 days at a time and are responsible for all aspects of life on board from sailing, cooking, cleaning and living with up to 22 people at a time. The full circumnavigation takes eleven months to complete.
Kiki Sheridan, from Finland, was a retail manager who shelved her job to circumnavigate the globe on the Clipper 2019-20 Race. She said: "It's exhilarating - it makes you feel alive! If, like me, you mainly work indoors then being there with Mother Nature is very life affirming. It's a race, but it's so much more than that."
The Clipper Race route includes six ocean crossings, and it's the only global yacht race to include a North Pacific Ocean crossing. That leg is so remote that at times, the nearest humans to the Clipper Race are the astronauts in the International Space Station.
Kiki adds: "You realise how you're such a small piece in a huge universe, it's very liberating. Things used to keep me awake at night, like an important work meeting maybe, and there you are in the middle of the ocean. It makes it all seem very insignificant."
Race Crew come from all over the globe, with professions including teachers, plumbers, students, doctors, photographers and farmers. Race Crew can sign up to take on one, a combination of, or all eight legs of the route. But becoming a circumnavigator with the Clipper Race puts Race Crew in an elite club; more people have climbed Mount Everest or completed all six of the Abbott World Marathon Majors than raced around the world.
Jun Gao also circumnavigated with the Clipper 2023-24 Race, taking part on Team Zhuhai. She said: "I don't think I could ever imagine what I saw out there in the open ocean...I couldn't even describe it to my friends. You have to be there, to see it, to have it in your memories to even imagine it."
Whilst some 40 percent of Clipper Race crew have never sailed before signing up, the remaining 60 percent have had some form of on-the-water experience. But even then, sailing around the world is a very different challenge altogether. Patrick adds: "Modern cruising yachts can make life easy, they might have furlers or mechanical winches. But part of Sir Robin's vision was to get the crew to do the work; these boats are all manually powered. We steer them ourselves 24/7, we work every winch and lift every sail by hand."
Retief Jordaan, who also took on the full circumnavigation in 2023-24 said: "Whatever I was expecting, I got ten times more out of it. It's the biggest thing I've ever done in my life and it's the happiest I have ever been.
"It's been what I hoped for, what I wanted and what I needed. It delivered everything I could possibly have dreamed of wanting."
In an ever-connected and increasingly-pressurised world of convenience and predictability, the call to circumnavigate remains one of the last true tests of human endurance and spirit. For those who answer it, a life-changing adventure awaits.
Paddy reflected: "I don't think any of the hundreds of crew would disagree with me, there's no going back to who you were."
The Clipper 2025-26 Race is currently under way, with teams currently off the coast of the USA in the penultimate leg of the global route. The next edition gets under way in the summer of 2027, where teams will race a new generation of yacht, the Clipper RX, in the event's 15th edition. Applications are now open for people of all levels of experience to take part in the race of their lives.