The Hatch

Introduction

The Clipper Race is the brainchild of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man ever to sail solo non-stop around the world.

He wanted everyone, regardless of their background or level of sailing knowledge, to be able to experience the highs and lows and breathtaking exhilaration of ocean racing.

How It All Began

In 1995, with barely a year to go before the start of the first Clipper Race, the small team gathered by Sir Robin started planning with a vengeance, the fleet of eight 60-foot yachts commissioned and the crew recruited.

The yachts, the last of which was delivered just two weeks before the race began, were named after the original tea clippers who ruled the waves 150 years ago, racing to deliver their cargo from China to the fashionable, tea-drinking sets in London. In the Great Tea Race of 1866 Ariel was first over the finish line, completing the 15,000-mile race from the Chinese port of Foo-Chow-Foo to London in just 90 days. More than a century later her namesake was the first to lift the Clipper Trophy after winning the Clipper 96 Race.

On 12 October 2006 the Clipper Race celebrated the tenth anniversary of the start of the first race. The sixth one, Clipper 07-08, will start from Liverpool on 16 September 2007 and finish there in July 2008. What a difference from the eight white boats slipping out of Plymouth’s Mayflower Marina with a handful of spectators to see them on their way. It is a world away from the ten-strong fleet of Clipper 68s about to embark on their second circumnavigation representing a host of international cities. The crowds lining the Albert Dock in Liverpool and those who will turn out to greet the fleet in the other stopover ports will be in their tens of thousands; and around the world more than 200 million people will follow the Clipper 07-08 Race.

What has not changed is that the race still remains very true to its fundamental principle in that that it is a race for those who take part in it. Ordinary people doing something truly extraordinary.

Changing Routes

The routes for the first four Clipper races were similar but each had its own variations. Clipper 96 started in Plymouth and then went on to Madeira, Fort Lauderdale, Panama, Galapagos, Hawaii, Yokahama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seychelles, Durban, Cape Town, Salvador (Brazil), the Azores and back to Plymouth.

It had always been the intention to visit Cuba but this proved to awkward with a stop in the USA first, so to get over this, the Clipper 98 Round the World Yacht Race called briefly at Nassau in the Bahamas and then went onto Marina Hemingway, just to the west of Havana. The rest of the course didn’t alter.

After the Clipper 98 Race it was decided to include New York and so this was substituted for the Azores. This added a fair distance to the race and so the fleet stopped in Mauritius instead of the Seychelles. More saving was made by having Cape Town as the only South African port (although Durban made a welcome return to the route in Clipper 05-06 and we are looking forward to visiting South Africa’s playground again during the Clipper 07-08).

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