The team crossed the line on Thursday 22 October at 09:11:45 UTC (11:11:45 local), giving it a Race 2 elapsed time of 351 hours, 12 minutes. 

The team improved greatly on its Race 1 tenth place in the Clipper 2015-16 Round the World Yacht Race, known as one of the planet’s toughest endurance challenges.

In this leg across the South Atlantic Ocean, conditions didn’t disappoint, pushing the fleet on in a fast and furious crossing with some record speeds in excess of 30 knots, and the front runners averaging a credible 10 knots across the entire 14 day dash.

Da Nang - Vietnam Skipper Wendy Tuck reported the exciting finish which saw her team cross the line six minutes in front of the South African-sponsored entry IchorCoal after thousands of miles of racing:

“We had a duel to the finish line which was so exhilarating. The crew morale on board is fabulous. Towards the end when we could see IchorCoal in front of us, we knew we had to get it. I was in the navigation station when I got the call from deck that it had stopped and parked in a wind hole. We went from having two reefs in and a number three headsail and getting gusts of up to 38 knots, down to 16 knots, and then nothing. It was quite extraordinary on how it closed up so quickly".

"It’s hard racing out at sea waiting with baited breath for the six hourly reports to see where your competitors are, and to see if you have gained or lost. It’s very tense. The start was the first time we had sailed in really heavy winds upwind and we decided to go for the Scoring Gate which was pretty much upwind all the way.”

 “We figured by the time the weather changed we were halfway there so we thought we would go for it. It was good practice for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race because nobody had done it before. We then had really heavy downwind stuff that we didn’t experience in the last race which was a great learning curve for the crew,” Wendy added.

This race is being run on an elapsed time basis and the final positions and points will be awarded in ascending elapsed time. The shortest time wins. This is to account for the late start of LMAX Exchange and Qingdao after repairs following damage caused outside of racing during the stopover in Brazil. They started three days 11 hours and ten minutes after the rest of the fleet.

The Clipper Race fleet will depart for Albany, Western Australia on 31 October where it will then visit Sydney and the Whitsundays before racing to Da Nang.

The expected arrival dates for Da Nang are estimated to be between 17 – 21 February. The international crew and their friends and families will enjoy a stopover in the city until the race departure on 27 February.  

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the world’s longest ocean adventure and is also regarded as one of the toughest endurance challenges on the planet. At 40,000 miles and taking almost a year to complete, it consists of twelve teams competing against each other on the world’s largest matched fleet of 70-foot ocean racing yachts.

The Clipper Race was established in 1996 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world in 1968-69. His aim was to allow anyone, regardless of previous sailing experience, the chance to embrace the thrill of ocean racing; it is the only event of its kind for amateur sailors. Around 40 per cent of crew are novices and have never sailed before starting a comprehensive training program ahead of their adventure. 

This unique challenge brings together everyone from chief executives to taxi drivers, nurses and firemen, farmers, airline pilots and students, from age 18 upwards, to take on Mother Nature’s toughest conditions. There is no upper age limit, the oldest competitor to date was 74.

Whether they choose to take on  the whole circumnavigation or compete in one or more of eight individual legs, all our crew achieve something remarkable as they conquer some of the world’s most challenging oceans.

The overall route is split into a series of global races and a maximum 12 points going to first place descending to 1 point for twelfth place. The team with the highest cumulative points at the end of the final race wins the series, and the Clipper Race trophy.

In the 2015-16 edition of this biennial challenge, 700 people of more than 40 nationalities are taking part. Over 3,300 novice sailors have been transformed into ocean racers throughout Clipper Race history so far. The race started in London in August when the fleet sailed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. From Cape Town it will race to Australia calling in Albany, Sydney, Hobart and Airlie Beach, before traveling on to Da Nang, Vietnam; Qingdao, China; Seattle and New York in the USA; Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland; and Den Helder, The Netherlands. The race will finish in London on 30 July 2016.

To mark this tenth edition of the race, the Clipper Race is proud to support Unicef as our Official Race Charity. Unicef operates in 190 countries around the world, including every country on the Clipper Race route, and ensures more of the world’s children are fed, vaccinated, educated and protected than any other organisation.

PV