Following a Departure Ceremony and Parade of Sail in front of the New York skyline and Statue of Liberty, the 12 international teams started Race 12 of the series, the ‘LegenDerry Finale’ to Derry Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
The teams of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race performed a Le Mans start at Ambrose Lighthouse at 1944 local time Monday (2344 UTC) on the first of three races making up the final leg. Race 13, Derry Londonderry to Den Helder, The Netherlands, and Race 14, Den Helder to London, UK will complete the global series which concludes on 30 July.
Points are extremely tight at the top of the leaderboard, with LMAX Exchange,Skippered by Frenchman Olivier Cardin, 10 points ahead of second-placedDerry~Londonderry~Doire. GREAT Britain is seven points behind the Northern Irish entry in third position, and just four points ahead of Garmin, in fourth.
With a maximum of 41 points available over the next three races, the top four positions are still up for grabs, creating a lot of pressure for the leading Skippers.
Olivier Cardin said ahead of the LegenDerry Finale start: “We will be paying close attention to the ice marks set by the Race Office in the first part of the race. Then we will be close to the North Atlantic High. It might be difficult to go to the Scoring Gate section of the course as a result”.
“We want to control Derry~Londonderry~Doire and maintain our position 10 points ahead of it by staying close to the boat, GREAT Britain and Garmin by covering them. The team is not complacent at all, and we know we must keep fighting hard to stay at the top of the leaderboard, but we are confident after five overall race wins out of eleven, so far,” Olivier added.
Peter Thornton, Skipper of GREAT Britain, said the sailing would be quite challenging for the first half of the race. “There are some good southerlies forecast, and the longer they last then the better. That will tempt quite a lot of people to be close to the ice limit gates, if the winds don’t turn out as we forecast that might cause some problems. There is a lot of pressure and that is playing on my mind,” Peter added.