Yachting-Live

Clipper Fleet Sails Into Santa Cruz
Uniquely Singapore has managed to steal line honours from Nova Scotia by crossing the finish line at 05:16 local (12:16 GMT) Wednesday morning at the end of Race 8 from Hawaii to Santa Cruz in the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race. In a nail biting finish in light airs the Singaporean team managed to overtake Nova Scotia, the team representing the east coast province of Canada crossing less than an hour later at 05:51 local (12:51 GMT).

The victory for Uniquely Singapore marks their first win of the Clipper 07-08 Race series and their first podium position of the race so far.

A tactical decision to head north paid off for both teams as they achieved more favourable wind angles and avoided the wind holes that beset the rest of the fleet further south.

The majority of the fleet are expected to arrive over the next couple of days with the US entry, New York expected to take the final podium position and arrive in Santa Cruz Harbour later today. Durban 2010 and Beyond and westernaustralia2011.com will complete the fleet by arriving in Santa Cruz early next week.

Clipper 07-08 is the sixth edition of the biennial Clipper Race and the Santa Cruz stopover marks the first time the race has visited a port on the west coast of the United States. During the teams’ short visit the fleet is being hosted by the Santa Cruz Yacht Club who will also host the prize giving ceremony on Monday 21 April.

The Californian stopover of Clipper 07-08 has also been timed to coincide with the Strictly Sail Pacific boat show, which begins today at Jack London Square, Oakland, California. The Clipper Race will be exhibiting at the show today and this coming weekend and Crew Recruitment Manager David Cusworth will be on hand explain how prospective crew members can get onboard and take on the challenge of a lifetime.

www.clipperroundtheworld.com

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.