Clipper 13 14 Race visit not wanted?

A number of Kiwis planing to sail into their home country this years on a round the world race with 12 other boats are very disappointed to learn to day that the Clipper 13 14 race is not wanted in NZ!

We can justify spending millions to send a boat to the US for a race but when Clipper 13 14 actually want New Zealand as a stop over we don't want it? Come on people, we are better than this.


Dear James,

Welcome to the first official crew briefing for the Clipper 13-14 Round the World Yacht Race, below is a transcript of the presentation.

Crew briefings are very important because they are an excellent way for us to give you more information and to help you prepare for the race.

The next crew briefing will be at the Crew Allocation day on 11 May.

The aim of these briefings, together with Clipper Crew News, is to keep the information flowing to you. We want to keep you updated on the latest developments with the race and also answer your questions.

If you have any questions after this please email or phone the office.

We are not currently in a position to give more information about the race start location or the overall race schedule which is heavily linked to the start location. However, we hope to be able to give you this information shortly.

Currently we are in negotiations with potential host ports and this means that some stopovers cannot be confirmed yet. We can confirm that Leg 2 will finish and Leg 3 will begin in Cape Town and that Leg 5 will stop in Singapore before heading to Qingdao in China. On Leg 7, you will visit Cozumel in Mexico after transiting the Panama Canal and finish in New York.

Unfortunately we will not be visiting New Zealand in Leg 4, please read 'The Race' section of this brief for further details on the race route. We can Confirm that De Lage Landen have come on board for a second year and that we will be visiting the Netherlands in Leg 8.

The new Clipper 70 is a quantum leap forward in both design and there are four reasons why it will be faster:

It has a longer waterline; for those of you with mathematical bent, the best speed of a boat is calculated using the formula of square root of waterline length times 1.4. The formula basically works for the QM2 and our boats. Above that figure you need a huge boost in horsepower.

Look at the Clipper 70s and their waterline is quite a bit longer than the Clipper 68s, and the Clipper 68s were fast. But there are certain circumstances when the hull allows the boat to surf beyond that rule and we expect this to happen with the Clipper 70s. More sail area means an increase in the horsepower; 4 tons lighter than the Clipper 68s means less weight to push along a broad and powerful stern, which means much faster speeds off the wind.

Yacht 1 and 2 were delivered late last year. Yachts 3 and 4 were delivered at the beginning of this month. We will take delivery of two yachts every month until we have all 12.

Once we have a yacht delivered it take approximately seven to eight weeks to test and commission it before it can be handed over to the training department.

By the time Level 3 training starts in late May we will have eight yachts in service and yachts 1 and 2 are well into their test and commissioning phase.

Justin Taylor
Race Director


There are plenty of opportunities for you all to be involved and become part of this:

Before the race you can join in with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

A Clipper 13-14 Race television programme is planned which will feature all of the crews.

A new website and Race Tracker is being developed which will provide an official record of the race and we encourage crew to get involved by taking pictures, recording video and writing team blogs for the website which will be sent back to the Clipper Race Office for the team to upload.

If you would like to create a more personal record of the race to send home to your friends and family you can open an email account and send your personal photos, videos, diaries and blogs via this method.

THE RACE

This year's race start date and venue is still to be confirmed but will be no earlier than Sunday 18 August. This means that the race will finish in July 2014.

We can confirm that Leg 2 will finish and Leg 3 begins in Cape Town before the fleet heads for Western Australia.

We have unfortunately decided to take the decision not to visit New Zealand on Leg 4. Our host port negotiations there have stalled but you will still be crossing the Southern Ocean and we will be adding an additional Australian pitstop on Leg 4.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston explained: "It is quite hard at the moment to get ports to commit. We have been going through an economic crisis worldwide and I'm not interested in going to a port that doesn't want us.

"We have to pick the ports quite carefully. They have to have good facilities and they have to have good access. What has happened is that the New Zealanders have been dragging their feet and after the latest message from them we decided that we couldn't go on like this.

"I can't confirm which the additional Australian port will be, but I know that it will interest you because we pick ports that I would want to visit myself and we will confirm as soon as we can."

The length and duration of Leg 4 will not change significantly by not stopping in New Zealand. Final mileage and days spent at sea will depend on where we stop between Western and Eastern Australia but they will rely more on where the fleet actually stops on the East Coast.

Rest assured that this leg will still be a proper Southern Ocean leg with huge waves and powerful winds, as the yachts will be sailing in the 'Roaring Forties' as they approach quite close to 44 degrees south.

Leaving Eastern Australia on Leg 5, crews will stop in Singapore before heading to Qingdao, China.

On Leg 7, crews will leave California and transit the Panama Canal before racing to Cozumel in Mexico and then up the east coast of the United States and on Leg 8, the race will visit the Netherlands.

We are currently negotiating with a number of exciting host ports and will communicate any futher developments to the route as soon as we have them.

Follow the Clipper Race online for all the latest news and action.

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Clipper Ventures Plc
info@clipper-ventures.com