Race 9 in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race from Singapore to Qingdao in China has got under way with the skipper of the Derry “LondonDerry” Doire confident they can improve on their current position.
A seventh position finish at the end of Race 8 from Brisbane to Singapore sees the Derry Clipper in third place on 69 points, 12 points behind leaders OneDLL which is just 1.1 points in front of of Henri Lloyd in second spot.
Derry skipper Sean McCarter is confident of maintaining third spot and is hopeful of possibly improving on that,
He said: “This is supposed to be one of the most challenging, if not, the most challenging of the race series after talking to past skippers and past crew.
“Some say this is the toughest and others say the following race, across the Pacific is the toughest, but this is just a condensed version of the Pacific I think.
“We’ll start off, hot and tropical difficult conditions, upwind and it will get progressively colder and I think, arriving into Qingdao there will potentially be snow on the decks and that will be quite challenging.”
Sean said the boat was “capable” of the challenges that lie ahead.
He added: “Psychologically, it doesn’t feel like we’re half way. Certainly not to me and I’ve tried to brief the guys that our half way point is really San Francisco because the next leg up to Qingdao and then the pacific, are both upwind races and very difficult.
“Also if you look at the total points available from San Francisco, there are still 40% left overall.
“We’re delighted to be where we are in the table and we’re hoping to be consistent and keep our high average points and hopefully hold onto our third place or even improve on it.”
He concluded: “If we can do that by San Francisco, we’ll be over the moon and can move into our second half from then on.”
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