The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race Diary, Part 1 – Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

September 13, 2013

It has been a fantastic and busy past few months for everyone at Clipper Race HQ and for the crews who are now on their way to Rio de Janeiro on Leg 1.

It was extremely exciting to see the Clipper Race start on the River Thames for the first time. The river is London’s greatest asset but is vastly underused in my opinion. Seeing the new fleet of twelve Clipper 70’s parading down with all the crews on the deck was a very proud moment as tens of thousands of people lined the river banks to cheer them on, and spectator vessels of all kinds came to wave them farewell on their round the world voyage.

The brand new fleet of twelve Clipper 70 yachts are proving to be faster than our previous fleet already and have set new race speed records sooner than expected, which is exciting for myself, the race team and of course the crews racing them.

In a similar way to the crew taking part in this epic challenge, we are always looking to develop, grow, push ourselves forward and most importantly, improve.

We always have to evolve as a business and the new fleet shows our latest developments.   The build and debut of the new fleet indicates our intentions moving forward and our pedigree at a time of global, financial uncertainty.

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There are many new elements included in the Clipper 70’s which will mean they go a lot quicker. These improvements include a bigger sail area, an additional coffee grinder and also two helms and twin rudders for better control.

We had a very warm reception for our first race stop in Brest, Brittany, last week. It is a real French maritime city and legendary home for sailors as well as the Tonneres de Brest, one of the biggest international sailing festivals in the world. I have attended the festival several times with my yacht Suhaili, on which I sailed in my first circumnavigation in 1968/9, meeting up with many French sailing friends and competitors too.

I was also honoured to have my handprints cast for a new sailing Hollywood-style ‘walk of fame for record breakers’ after I won the Trophee Jules Verne there in 1994 with the late Sir Peter Blake. The walk by the Marina du Chateau will feature the handprints of France’s most famous circumnavigators and some of my biggest Francophile rivals.

The boats are now in some very good winds off Portugal and are surfing along nicely on their way down past Africa, to Brazil. Eric Holden and the Henri Lloyd crew achieved a new race record speed of 30.7 knots in some fantastic conditions earlier this week, producing some big surfs. We expected the Clipper 70’s to set faster racing speeds but didn’t realistically think we would see speeds like this till the Southern Ocean. To achieve this so early on in the race, makes me very excited for the possibilities as we progress.

We are very much looking forward to arriving in Rio in the first week of October. There is a fitting link here between the London 2012 Olympics and the 2016 host destination as our fleet will be berthing in the Olympic sailing venue, Marina da Gloria.

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We are planning some engaging activations for our sponsors and crews in Rio. One in particular will be a rugby and sailing session with the Brazilian Sevens team and former England Rugby Sevens captain Ollie Phillips. Ollie is a Clipper Race crew member of GREAT Britain and plans to return to Rio in 2016 to represent Great Britain in the first Olympic Rugby Sevens event.  We are planning similarly engaging rugby activations in further stopover ports with Ollie as his is a very unique sports story and one we aim to utilise to boost the Clipper Race appeal within a wider sports audience.

Team sponsor and learning and development partner, Mission Performance will also be offering coaching sessions with skippers and crew members, inspiring them to evolve as leaders and build on the skills they gain as they go round the world. OneDLL plan to hold sailing days in Rio for their corporate clients; Invest Africa are hosting a dinner for their South American network and Garmin will host a media sailing day.

The beauty of the Clipper Race is that as well as giving people a life-changing experience, it also offers access to new global markets as well as unrivalled media exposure as the high seas are used to maximise trade and tourism opportunities in growing markets for sponsors.

In the current economic climate, businesses around the world need a global outlook. This is precisely what the Clipper Race offers, both to businesses and crew alike. It is a very unique event and one that is constantly growing, evolving and improving to stay current and desirable to all. Our 2013-14 edition, the ninth Clipper Race, is off to a flying start and I look forward to talking you through its successes over the next eleven months.

All the best,

Robin


It is 45 years since Sir Robin Knox-Johnston set off on his record breaking solo, non-stop circumnavigation in 1968-69. In 1995, he established the Clipper Race, to give everyone, regardless of sailing experience, the opportunity to discover the exhilaration of ocean racing.

Now the world’s longest ocean race, 670 amateur sailors representing more than 40 nations will compete in the Clipper 2013-14 Race. They set sail from London on September 1 and will travel 40,000 miles on twelve Clipper 70’s in 15 races across all six continents, not returning to London till July 2014.

You can follow the Clipper 2013-14 Race at www.clipperroundtheworld.com and on Twitter via @ClipperRace.

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