Sailboats Racing Near the Philippines

Nova Scotia, westernaustralia2011.com and Qingdao led the Clipper fleet in their move eastwards yesterday and now the rest of the fleet is also starting to move across the Luzon Strait ready to thread their way through the small islands between the Philippines and Taiwan. The course set by the Race Committee requires the fleet to leave Taiwan to port and so we’ll be seeing a lot more east in the fleet’s tracks over the next few days.

With the race so close between the fleet, all the crews are pushing hard to gain every advantage against their nearest competitors. With second to fourth places lined up in less than 30 miles of water, the temptation to push the boat, sails and crew to the limit is overwhelming, especially when they see that they have taken some miles out of first place Jamaica.

Uniquely Singapore’s skipper Mark Preedy has been torn over a sail change: “Been on the cusp of number one sail and number two for the last 24 to 32 hours. Which, if you include the fact the swell has been making helming difficult and therefore the sails are not given a chance to drive efficiently, the temptation to get the number one up to compensate has been irritating close. But the extra power and pounding into waves would have caused damage to the number one and/or rig if we drove it too hard. So we have been waiting patiently for the opportunity to get the boat moving better and this morning it came. The wind has come more northerly and we can sail comfortably with the number one. Still gusting a little but we can deal with that.”

At this stage of the round the world race, the fleet will still be eager to preserve their sails. Although they have now made it half way round their circumnavigation in terms of distance and dates, there are still a lot of points up for grabs and a stretched or damaged headsail could make the difference on the later races.

Durban 2010 and Beyond has taken the middle path and has a little sea-room compared to the two groups of Clippers either side of them but, as they are tied for fifth place with New York, they are not easing off at all. “Busy morning, lots of sail changes, tacks reefs and back down and up again,” says Ricky Chalmers, skipper of the South African entry. “Started off the morning with number two and a reef. Shook the reef out then changed to the number one. Back to the number two. Now back to the number one. Various tacks and stops in between. Busy morning. The number two is hanked back on – I just know we are going to have it back up again before very long.”

Jamaica can feel the fleet nipping at their heels but, having worked so hard to build up a good lead in first place, they are doing everything they can to hold onto it despite the various obstacles they encountered through the night: “Much of last night was spent avoiding two large fishing fleets and several large ships which, in turn, were also avoiding the fishing fleets and perhaps us as well. This meant little sleep and a high level of concentration from everybody on board. We’ve lost miles to the fleet which is not good, so now we’re trying to up our performance.”

POSTIONS AT 1200 GMT 5 FEBRUARY 2008

1. Jamaica: Distance to Finish (DTF) 1318
2. Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper: DTF 1364 (Distance to Leader +46)
3. Hull & Humber: DTF 1373 (+55)
4. Uniquely Singapore: DTF 1379 (+61)
5. New York: DTF 1384 (+66)
6. Durban 2010 and Beyond: DTF 1384 (+66)
7. Nova Scotia: DTF 1399 (+81)
8. westernaustralia2011.com: DTF 1425 (+107)
9. Liverpool 08: DTF 1439 (+121)
10. Qingdao: DTF 1464 (+146)

Latest positions and full leaderboard can be viewed at the Clipper Round the World Race website.
Photo credit: onEdition