My mate Ian's round the world race with Clipper Ventures…...

[Madame Buttonfly]

We're very excited about having places on one of the spectator boats that will be sending all the Clipper yachts off on Sunday.  Lots of fun (but my dear friend Sarah is Ian's fiancee and facing a year apart, so there will also be some tears…)

[Giles]

I think I'll stay at the bar then - not great on sympathy…......

[rocket]

sounds good, lets hope it will be a bright and sunny day

[jimmy]

Exciting stuff

[Giles]

I'm a bit worried about Ian.  It looks like he may be having to make his way back to the start.  Possibly some sort of collision overnight…...

[Beatle]

ur kidding, right ?

[Madame Buttonfly]

@Beatle:

ur kidding, right ?

Sadly, no…

[Giles]

No.

Take a look here.  You can actually do a replay, and sometime in the early hours of last night there were 4 boats very close together, Qingdao was one of them.  Then she peeled off and started heading north, the other 3 continued generally in a Southerly (correct) direction

http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/index.php/follow/race-viewer/

[Beatle]

woah, so what happens now ? also, u know how hard it is for me not to make one of my ironic remarks…I assume this is somewhat of a tragedy - but I really want to comment on the "not enough rum" stuff....biting my tongue

[Giles]

Anyway.  Here are a few pics from yesterday.

There is always one arse at an event like this (this time it was not me).  Amongst 100's of spectator boats, an aircraft carrier and 10 racing 68 footers, this jerk decided to have a ski…....

The fleet heading to the start/finish line

New York motoring to the start/finish line

Qingdao (Ian) Gold Coast and motoring to the start finish line.  You can see the 2 foresails ready to be hoisted - these will go up about 10 minutes before race start

[Beatle]

lol, I actually find the water skier guy kind of brave..or ignorant…

[Giles]

The trouble is he kept falling off, then he was just a bobbing head in a sea of boats.  The Coast Guards told them to stop a few minutes after I took this pic…......

[Beatle]

priceless..fucking idiots

[Giles]

Jockeying for position at the start

The crew are on the rail and we're racing

[Giles]

OK, so he has put a tack or a gybe in and he is now heading in a similar direction to the rest of the fleet, maybe he was heading north to find more favourable winds, guess I'll find out at some point…..

[Giles]

So this is the reason for the apparent lack of pace:

In fact they were in the wrong place when the tide turned and are being pulled east, in the opposite direction to the one they wish to travel in. They have two knots of breeze but the speed of the tide against them is more and therefore they are effectively moving backwards. They are trying to use their sea anchor - known as a kedge - to hold them in position off Portland until the tide turns and they can shake loose.

[Beatle]

woah, this is funky stuff…hope they make up for the lost time...

[Giles]

Well the thing about these long races is that it is a marathon, not a sprint..  Some of the younger skippers will push their boats hard, and during a 40,000 mile race, things will start to break.  Ian, I am sure will take the longer view.

[Beatle]

well, than let´s look at the tide-break as part of the master plan…

[apba1166]

Great pix! Robin Knox Johnston is a friend of yours!?  He's the true spirit of the extreme version of this type of sailing. He's mentioned quite a bit in Lundy's Godforsaken Sea. Go Ian!