Qingdao to California
This is the longest individual race of Clipper 09-10 and the crews will be at sea for approximately 35 days
This is the longest individual race of Clipper 09-10 and the crews will be at sea for approximately 35 days. Five weeks living and working in the same 68-foot space as 17 other people as you race across the Pacific Ocean, the biggest expanse of water on the planet.
To get some idea of how far you will sail, look at the Pacific Ocean on a globe. You will just be able to see the edge of the Asian continent on the left and the North American land mass on the right. The rest is open water.
There's yet another achievement to tick off your list on this Leg: crossing the International Date Line.
The day the Clipper 07-08 fleet left Qingdao it snowed. It will be a chilly start to Leg 5 and, in addition to the possibility of snow and ice, fog and fishing boats are a certainty. As the boats race towards the south of Japan they will remain quite tightly bunched but, as you enter the Pacific, tactics once again come into play as skippers and crews are faced with the old dilemma; shortest, warmest route risking light airs, or stay north where it will be colder but the winds stronger.