Intrepids Join Clipper Round the World Yacht Race

As you will probably be aware, the Intrepids are taking part in the 2017/18 Clipper Round the World race and will be joining the fleet when it reaches Australia at the start of 2018.  Billed as 'the Race of Your Life', it involves around 700 amateur sailors, many of whom have had no prior sailing experience racing on 12 identical 70' yachts, each led by a professional skipper.

The eleventh edition of the 11 month, 40,000 nautical mile race starts at 12:30 BST (9:30pm Sydney) on Sunday 20th August from Liverpool in the UK, when the boats set sail on their first of 8 legs to Punta del Este in Uruguay. Liverpool has laid on a big party so it should be quite a spectacle if anyone is in the area.  It's also being live broadcast from 12 noon on several TV channels and can be seen on the link here  or on Youtube.  From Uruguay it progresses to Cape Town and across the Southern Ocean to Fremantle, before sailing to Sydney and joining the famous Sydney to Hobart race on Boxing Day.  

We pick it up for Leg 5 from Airlie Beach in Whitsundays in mid January, sailing to Sanya on Hainan Island in China and reaching QIngdao in northwest China in late March. Graham continues on from there across the North Pacific to Seattle and then through the Panama Canal and Caribbean to New York, where the fleet is due to arrive in mid June. Thereafter the boats head back to Liverpool via Londonderry, arriving in mid July 2018.

We are very pleased to be able to let you know that our boats, which we hope you will support, are sponsored by Garmin (formally known as CV22) which Jane will be on, and by Nasdaq (formally known as CV31) which Graham will be sailing.

If you would like to follow us in the race, there is an addictive 'Race Viewer'  which shows the positions of the boats updated hourly throughout the race and a host of other information including photos, race tracks and weather, wind and wave conditions.  Each of the boats is a different colour so hopefully it will be easy to spot Nasdaq (aqua) and Garmin (grey) at the head of the fleet. In addition there will be daily updates including links to the skippers and crew blogs from each boat together with photos and video snippets.  You can sign up to get these updates at any time by clicking the Race Daily Updates link.

There are also active team supporters groups for each of the crews on Facebook which you are very welcome to join and may be of interest for anyone whoThe eleventh edition of the 11 month, 40,000 nautical mile race starts at 12:30 BST (9:30pm Sydney) on Sunday 20th August from Liverpool in the UK, when the boats set sail on their first of 8 legs to Punta del Este in Uruguay. Liverpool has laid on a big party so it should be quite a spectacle if anyone is in the a's planning on meeting the race at any of its stopovers.  You can find them as Team Nasdaq supporters and Team Garmin supporters pages.

Finally, you may like to take a look at the http://clipperroundtheworld.com/about/about-the-race and click the accompanying video  link.

(Of course if all this makes you seasick and you'd rather not receive any more emails about the race please let us know)