The Derry “LondonDerry” Doire is out front on the sixth day of the Cllipper Round the World Yacht Race after avoiding “a disaster” during Race 2 from France to Brazil.
Sean McCarter maps out his next move.
The Derry crew will need to keep their concentration as there is less than a mile separating the top ten in the fleet.
Eric Holden, skipper of second-placed Henri Lloyd believes the Sean McCarter and his crew will be hard to catch.
He said: “Derry~Londonderry~Doire will be hard to catch and we will fight for every mile. We are looking forward to continuing the close rivalry we shared in Race 1 across the English Channel.”
With 1,000 miles of the 40,000 mile challenge completed, skipper Sean McCarter said “all was well” on board “the good ship” Derry “LondonDerry” Doire despite encoutering a “near disaster”
Full of praise for his crew, he explained what happened: “After a few days of making west on a starboard tack out of the Bay of Biscay and staying high on the great circle route, we decided it was time to admit that what goes up, must come down!
“We hoisted the medium weight spinnaker at first light then gybed south a few hours later.
“We worked hard all day, kept high averages and narrowly avoided disaster when one of our medium weight sheets (control lines) became detached – picture a flag the size of a tennis court flapping wildly out of control on a windy day. Amazingly, we used the Letterbox line (another control line not intended for sail trim) to fly the sail through the Letterbox for almost 10 minutes.
“At 12-14 knots boat-speed while we got the original sheet reattached by a combination of round the world crew member Kirsti Wilson in the harness and Leg 1 to 4 crew member Wyatt Orsmond (the tallest man in the fleet) on his stilt-legs and a large amount of luck!
“Ordinarily, this issue would have required us to drop the medium weight spinnaker and re-hoist; a manoeuvre that would have taken at least an hour and cost 12-15 miles. Sometimes you just have to ‘get it done’!”
