News

Countdown begins to race finish in Liverpool

01 July 2008

The Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race will finish in Liverpool this Saturday 5 July.

It will be an emotionally-charged day for the crews who will be coming to the end of their great adventure, the challenge of a lifetime, which has taken them 35,000 miles around the world. On the way they have visited ports on five continents, raced across oceans, taken on everything Mother Nature has thrown at them - including snow, gales, ice, fog, heavy seas, flat calm and perfect conditions for the most exhilarating sailing they could ever hope to experience - and come through stronger, mentally and physically, as skilled seamen and women. They have forged friendships that will last a lifetime and their experience will be something they will never forget.

Among the 400 crew who have competed along the way are 62 circumnavigators who join the elite group of individuals who can claim to have raced around the world under sail. It is a feat so rare, more than twice as many people have climbed Everest than have circumnavigated the planet on a racing yacht.

Large crowds are expected in Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008 to welcome the fleet back to Albert Dock. The programme for the day can be viewed here: Liverpool_Race_Finish_Programme.pdf

The direct course from Cork to Liverpool is approx 250 nautical miles. Depending upon the weather conditions and the various tidal gates this could take the fleet between 24 and 72 hours to complete.

Race Director, Joff Bailey, says. “Obviously with all of the finish celebrations arranged in Liverpool for Saturday having a finish window this large is not practical. The actual finish for the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race will be early Saturday morning at the Liverpool Bar buoy at the entrance to the Mersey River. It is anticipated that the first and tenth teams to finish could could be separated by a six-hour duration. To ensure that the Clipper yachts finish at a suitable time the Race Office will be using a combination of a ‘fixed duration race’ with an ‘elastic’ race course. The ‘elastic’ course means that marks can be added into or taken out of the race course so that length of the course can be adjusted to the wind conditions and the teams will finish at a reasonable time on Saturday morning in preparation for the welcome home celebrations. One issue that this does give the race team are the updates to the race viewer! To overcome this the race viewer will be updated more often (approx every 3 hours) during the final 48 hours of the Clipper Race, but race followers may notice that the Distance To Finish (DTF) might actually increase or unexpectedly decrease as the elastic course is adjusted.”