Clipper race started

[Tintin]

The Clipper race started lunchtime today.

They are heading west along the English Channel tonight before the turn to Rio after Ushant.

If anyone is nearby them over the next few days could you radio support to CV26 - Clipper Telemed, which I will be joining down in Cape Town for the southern ocean leg.

You can follow the race here (updated every 3 hrs)http://clipperroundtheworld.com/race/standings

 

[tcm]

Telemed is second to last at the moment, 11 miles behind the leader after 55 miles or so. Hm. Meanwhile, Qingdongwassername the Chinese-sponsored boat mit Igor ze Hungarian (?) German schkipper is leading. Hurrah! Or er whatever - not sure who anyone is supposed to cheer since the crews and skippers and boat names all sorta handed out. Maybe we oughta cheer for Armchair Racer? Except none of them called that, dang.

 

[tcm]

Ooh, more interesting stuff amongst Clipperistas, with the Stormhoek Crew Challenge. Stormhoek is the er, official Race wine sponsor (?) and they're a company from Seth Efrica. The Stormhoek award (1 per leg) is all about er Social spirit, encouraging crew vibe. Which is a Very Good Thing. Well, it's very good that they get a wine sponsor, and another free trophy to hand out to one of the 11 losers in each leg, possibly a bit wishy washy but maybe not.

In order to win, teams (or individuals?) have to do something other than fix the boat, get some rest, help other crew who are actually in a bloody RACE for crissakesakes and instead fire up the mega satcomms and jam the airwaves by contributing to the Facebook page saying why they ought to win. Which is gonna be a kinda difficult thing to argue isn't it? Cos really, the most winningest contribution would be modest, and expressing support for everyone else to win, and us to come last. And then gamble on the last being first thing, hopefully. So you couldn't go on there and say how your team was MUCH MUCH more sociable than those tosspots over on the other boats, none of whom even bought a drink at the bar! Altho there again, I spose the wine sponsor and the beer sponsors will mean free drinks, along with Rum, Gin, etc official Race Sponsors. Hm. Not easy. Extra giggling amongst girl crew and not throwing up over RKJ would be a start, perhaps - except it's all judged from the from the Facebook page, it sez? Perhaps downloading a pic of rare offshore wifi hotspot with everyone on their laptop, been done before but quite a good gag, or good enough for FB micro-amusing lightweight populist pap masquerading as communication and networking and getting along, when in fact it's all, like, yerknow, like, rubbish.

Perhaps also play a safety card of also supporting the way that Seth Efrican wine growers don't use slaves any more and some of them get paid as much as 15rand a day, which is terribly generous seeing as how they are er, they aren't of Dutch origin. Hum. Better also not mention that quite a lot of RSA wine tastes like varnish. Although there's no arguing that a Stormhook does sound like a terrific bit of offshore sailing gear.

 

[Fimacca]

Thought about joining a leg of this, sort of put off by the commercialism of it, and those doing it as part of the 'bucket list' to do in their time before they are 30. Would I strangle the banker sleeping next to me and stuff his Rolex in his ear for a chuckle.......
Have I got it wrong? Maybe it is great........

Nice boats though.......tidy coats you get too.....10k for a short leg I am told........!

 

[tcm]

Cancel that about Qunigdonwassername in front - now it's LMAX Exchange in front, skipperered ze French guy Olivier Cardin. Olivier lists Eric Tabarlay as his sailing heroes and it's quite intresting to read all about the team on the net. Or at least it would be, except I imagine Olivier will have chucked all the comms away to make things quicker, just like ole Eric who tres-romantically died at sea er somewhere in the Irish Sea. Not sure where of course, due to aforementioned lack of comms, nav gear and pah! batteries...

LMAX Exchange is a go-getting er currency summink forex trading company. I originally thought that they might have done the sponsorhip after a massive post-board-meeting liquid City lunch and then getting lost around St Katherines and ooh boats and alright Robin me old matey here's a few mill, not actiually our money anyway haha. But in fact LMAX aren't based in the City at all, so it can't have been like that, or not exactly anyway.

 

[tcm]

Probably worth mentioning UNICEF, boat of the official Race Charity, who are curremtly 12th and last. United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund, but these days no funding from the UN. Instead, they gotta get the money from donations and jangling buckets under the noses of the forex chaps mentioned above.

I spose it costs rather a lot of loot for a boat sponsorship package and perhaps UNICEF managed to get a cheap or even FREE deal. Hurrah! Altho I bet it was on the basis that they agree to be rubbish, and last. Bit of a bummer for the crew, or maybe the crew are also the specially-selected deserving (ie skint or cheque-bouncer) and/or bit useless (screamed when the spinnaker went up etc) cases who also have to agree not to drink too much of the Official Wine or Other Expensive Stuff., and don't get to keep their jackets. Maybe.

 

[tcm]

Team GB are *just* behind in solid second place at the moment. I tried to have a look a the teams/crew for each boat but the site is a bit of a mess in that regard. However, team GB does seem to have bagged all the Olympic medal winning types which ok, yeah, some at badminton etc but they're still gona be a bit handy aren't they? Ripping sails down and slinging other ones up ten times a day no problem, and loads better than the housewife types.

Actually, team GB do have at least one of the much-less-than-olympian "looking for a challenge before retirement" types, and a Paralympian... although Paralympians can be very handy as well too, can't they? Like the deaf swimmer, i mean, yerknow, not much of a disability really? But some of them have no legs so I suppose that evens things up, as long as they don't have a gun ahem.

Anyway, one of the GB crew is Charlotte Evans ....who won gold at the Paralympics did skiing, probably had a brain by-pass.... let's have a look at her wiki ... oh er no, she won the gold as an able-bodied GUIDE for the actual disabled person just behind her. Hum.. So, not disabled at all, and in fact incredibly good at talking to other people whilst doing mad dangerous things. Sheesh!

So there you are, the whole GB crew is a bunch of ringers, or as close to "ringer" as you can get without knowing much sailing/racing, and they're doing quite badly not to be winning by miles, all the time. Useless lot. Do they get to see this stuff? Hope not....

 

[tcm]

It's nice that all the boats have such interesting sponsors eh? Although you gotta wonder, what were the boats called before they got their sponsor, and esp if the sponsor is quite recently-announced, hm?

Well, rather sneakily, although some nice sponsor has handed over a pile of loot to RKJ, the boat isn't really called Qingdong or VisitSeattle or GetLostYorkshire or whatever. As the OP reveals, the real name of his boat is CV26. If Telemed get caught up in some horrid scandal, well, different wrapping and nice new "name" next day - but it will still be CV26.

You can check on their progress much more frequently (at the moment) on Marinetraffic.com, live map shows their real name as per AIS (CV26, CV32 etc etc) and it shows current speed as well which the bit-rubbishy and far-too-touchy-feely "race" site doesn't seem to do.

At the moment, Mission Performance is new tailender, actually dropping behind the Official Losing Boat (Unicef), by heading off towards the Solent instead of towards Rio like all the others. Mission Performance i think is a motivation thingy company, yerknow, organising MOTIVATIONAL weekend hikes or sailing at vast cost to corporations instead of just going on the very same hike or sail anyway, which might be motivational, or of course, you might accidentally all get drunk and get into a fight. This actually happened to me a while back, at a company ski weekend in the Alps when our very big but very-drunk ex-Navy sales manager went for me, i was cornered but i decked him in one hit. Which did wonders for leadership and team bonding stuff, but that's another story.

Anyways one of the Directors of MP is RKJ. So obviously the sponsorship must be a bit slow. And of course MP can't win either - else it'll look like it was rigged if RJK presents a trophy to his own company, oh heck.

 

[nortonmotors]

This is more entertaining than marinetraffic.com. More!

 

[LONG_KEELER]

This is more entertaining than marinetraffic.com. More!

Yup.

Sort of rambling Syd Rumpo on a yachting theme .

Keep it coming.

 

[DJE]

Can I propose a vote of thanks to Benfleet Yacht Club for running the start again? Sister in law is a past Commodore and was sailing with us over the weekend.

 

[tcm]

The race report on the website says that GB is second, but the stats show that it's leading. There again, the website also says "back to crew reports" and it doesn't go back at all. So, back out of the website and go in again shows nice chat from the skip on Mission Performance, who has been tactically quite canny carefully stayed away from Alderney race foul tides .... which obviously might be relevant on yer 30footer but 70 footers bosh straight through and now he's last. Or at least, he's last at the moment.

Looking ahead, it all looks fine through Biscay, and a following puff south past and around Finisterre.

 

[Tintin]

The race report on the website says that GB is second, but the stats show that it's leading. There again, the website also says "back to crew reports" and it doesn't go back at all. So, back out of the website and go in again shows nice chat from the skip on Mission Performance, who has been tactically quite canny carefully stayed away from Alderney race foul tides .... which obviously might be relevant on yer 30footer but 70 footers bosh straight through and now he's last. Or at least, he's last at the moment.

Looking ahead, it all looks fine through Biscay, and a following puff south past and around Finisterre.

Missing Performance?

Sail menders on telemed are already sewing up blown spinny.

 

[tcm]

this is the current marinetraffic pic

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:200856/zoom:10

...which shows all the CV numbers not their "names" so we kinda need to translate

we know CV26= Telemed

Great Britain = CV27
Qunidao = CV28
Lmex moneygrubbers = CV24

i think....

 

[tcm]

next area of interest is the crew diaries. I looked up the Team GB and a nice list of crew ... and then an unlisted crew member name of Simon Rosebottom has posted the day 1 crew report. Simon seems to have been preparing his post for some days, if not weeks and months:

"One hundred and one Augusts ago, on the eve of two other great adventures, Sir Ernest Shackleton sent a telegram to The First Lord of the Admiralty, putting his ship, the Endurance and his crew at the Sea Lords' disposal.

More recently, the Team GREAT Britain skipper, Peter Thornton held the post of flag leftenant to the same present day Sea Lords. In August 1914, the then First Sea Lord, Winston Churchill responded, under direction of the King, George V with a single word. "Proceed" and an epic adventure began. Thus, we also proceed from our overnight mooring to Southend pier, race start proper and our own epic adventure."

Jeez! Hey Si, it's only a blimmin sailing jolly, not exploration of the unknown Antarctic? And not during WW1 or 2 or 3 either.

 

[Tintin]

Simon is actually quite a character. Very traditional englishman. Handlebar moustache. Tea drinking. And about 35!!!

http://www.handlebarclub.co.uk/newsGE.php

He lives in a bygone age.

 

[nortonmotors]

Checking progress this morning, six of them seem to have turned back! I hope not, but MOB perhaps?

 

[MoodySabre]

Did they miss a waypoint? Or did they miss the tidal gate and are drifting backwards? Odd.

 

[IanL]

Now seems to be seven of them going slowly backwards while others are carrying on. i cannot see any relevant news.

 

[SeaUrchin9]

Thought about joining a leg of this, sort of put off by the commercialism of it, and those doing it as part of the 'bucket list' to do in their time before they are 30. Would I strangle the banker sleeping next to me and stuff his Rolex in his ear for a chuckle.......
Have I got it wrong? Maybe it is great........

Nice boats though.......tidy coats you get too.....10k for a short leg I am told........!

+1
I was moored up at Queenborough the day before the start with all the clippers, and there were some uber annoying types. You can just tell they'll be a nightmare both when it is going well and going bad - irritating when feeling ok and weeping in a ball in the hull when it hits a F8. I think this sort of thing tends to attract desperados with big egos who haven't really considered their ability or aptitude for sailing, nor the group implications (which I find a bit selfish) - some have only had the 4 wks training. I know they've been vetted blah blah but how much can you really tell on that? 24 crew on a 75ft boat for several weeks sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Having said that there were a few decent types too, but I wouldn't want to be on a boat with so many newbies in such challenging waters.