Well that was a boring post. I’ll try to get more shots into all my others.
I realise I’ve not yet told you anything about the Clipper Race. Here’s a potted history with some photos we took of the last race return.
in 1969 (Sir) Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail single-handed non-stop around the world. He decided that anyone should be able to circumnavigate the globe and in October 1996 the first Clipper race started. It involved eight 60-foot boats, left from Plymouth and visited Madeira, Fort Lauderdale, the Panama Canal, the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii, Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Seychelles, Durban, Cape Town, Salvador in Brazil, the Azores and back to Plymouth.
The first four races (1996/97, 1998/99, 2000/01 and 2002/03) had these boats and left from Plymouth, Portsmouth and Liverpool. In 2005/06 ten 68 footers were available and the next four races left from Liverpool, Hull and Southampton. From 2013/14 there were twelve 70-footers and so far these have left from London (St Katherine’s Dock) and Liverpool.
There have been a total of 50 ports visited over the years in 27 countries. Around 40% of the participants had never sailed before joining Clipper.
In 2017/18, there were 712 crew (198 female and 514 male) aged 18 to 76 years. George and John fit nicely into this age bracket!
There were 41 nationalities with the biggest contingent being British (361) followed by the US (60 people) and Australia (48). Ten nations had one representative.
There were 337 declared livelihoods, with 83 from building and engineering, 53 medical and care and 39 scientists / technical people.
The main website is clipperroundtheworld.com and during the race there will be a race viewer which is updated hourly to show where the boats are.
Oh, and the picture at the top of this post? Adie (the punk) with her brother Alfie!
George and John's boating trip no longer 