The Derry Clipper crew still lead with just four days to go to the River Foyle finish line.
With the Derry finish line just four days away, the Derry “LondonDerry” Doire still leads on day 12 of race 14 of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.
GREAT Britain has moved up into second, leapfrogging Jamaica Get All Right, now in third position.
Sean McCarter, skipper of the Derry Clipper, said a tough challenge lay ahead.
He said: “We suffered yesterday from a dose of the ‘slows’. No matter what we did, we seemed to be between 0.5 and one knot below our target boat speed.
“The current predictions were suggesting we had 0.7 knots of favourable current but it was definitely the opposite.
We even tried a tack to see if there was any benefit going the other way but didn’t take long to tack back once we registered similar slow speeds with a terrible heading!
“We are playing a dangerous game at the moment called ‘Let’s see how close we dare to sail into the high pressure without losing all our wind and stopping dead’!
“It’s not a very fair game as we are the guinea pigs who must go first.
“However, if we can manage it without slowing down too much, our taking angle back out of the high pressure shouldn’t be too bad and we shouldn’t have to hold it for too long.
The Derry Clipper looks set to get a bonus point after it was the first boat to finish the Ocean Sprint in a time to 24 hours 20 minutes and 56 seconds.
Tags:
