Race 13 - Day 1
Skipper Report
23 July

Thank you, thank you, thank you Derry-Londonderry for such a fabulous two weeks! What a warm friendly city you are. For anyone who hasn't been to the Maritime Festival - it's definitely worth a visit – Clipper Race or no Clipper Race. Thank you to the Mayor for coming down for both arrival and departure. It's so nice to see how much everyone cares about the race and is interested in it. We couldn't have asked for more from our last stopover.

Wow does it feel fantastic to be nearly home. There is only about three hours of darkness ... may have discovered that on a late night or two in Derry ... which makes the sailing so much easier. Drizzly, rainy, overcast - very homely feeling today - miserable weather but not miserable people here - a little tired perhaps after a long day.

It was an intense start to a race. We were on the line bang on time - not the windward boat but in clear air. Made it to the first mark in fourth. Then for the next four hours we flew Code 1 (lightweight spinnaker), yankee, windseeker, Code 1, windseeker, yankee - and we are back on track in the forecast west south westerly beating to windward in moderate breeze. Basically, with all this work we moved next to nowhere but the crew worked their socks off and generally got irritated with me asking each of them to do about five things at once. Back in the swing of things then.

Who knows how the next five days will pan out. All we can do is our best and enjoy these last moments at sea.

Sailing with style - Nik