Clipper Progress

The drag race down through the Yellow Sea to Japan has continued during the 24 hours and the winners are those that have not broken anything. The leading pack of New York, Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper and Hull & Humber have reported that everything is going well and none have had any breakages in these extreme downwind conditions.

Liverpool 08 reported a broken guy during the day yesterday and further down the fleet, Durban 2010 and Beyond has been pushing hard to make up ground on the leaders

Tactics are now coming into play and the next decision will be have to be made later today as the teams approach the southern tip of Japan. Uniquely Singapore is in an interesting position as the most southerly boat, a move that could pay off - and so far they have not broken any equipment.

With the winds still between 25 - 40 knots from the north, later today the teams should fly like a cork from a champagne bottle out of the relative confines of the Yellow/East China Sea into the wide open expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

The first of the yachts are due to arrive in the next port of call, Honolulu in Hawaii, on approximately 20 March. The fleet will be berthed in the Ala Wai Small Yacht Harbour.

Educacion sin Fronteras Just Finished

Barcelona-born sailor Albert Bargués and French yachtswoman Servane Escoffier sailed into home waters this morning at 06:55:02 GMT to finish the Barcelona World Race in 5th place, after an epic 108 days 18 hours, 55 minutes and 2 seconds, sailing a total distance of 27,892 miles at an average speed of 9.45 knots! An incredible achievement for one of only two mixed crews in the race, the Spanish-French duo were the least experienced in terms of circumnavigations; a first round the world race for 26 year old Escoffier, and the first offshore experience in 20 years for Bargués, for whom the arrival in his home city was particularly emotional,

Albert: "This race was for me a sheer pleasure! I am now a fully satisfied man and even if I shouldn't say 'never again', I don't feel like I would need to sail around the world again because this race has completely fulfilled me!"

However Educación sin Fronteras, along with Paprec-Virbac 2 were the only two teams to complete the Barcelona World Race without stopping - a huge accomplishment for both crew and boat; the former "Kingfisher" was the oldest on the fleet by two generations , although already sporting an impressive track record (a second place finish in the 2001 Vendee Globe with Ellen MacArthur and victory in the 2002 Route du Rhum).

Groupama 3 Investigation

Back in France after righting Groupama 3 in the New Zealand port of Dunedin, eight of the crew of the giant trimaran were in Groupama's press centre in Paris today to answer questions from journalists during today's press conference.

The most important news from this meeting is the confirmation by Groupama's Managerial staff that the adventure is continuing. Indeed, the damage suffered by the giant trimaran is considerable but reparable. Franck Cammas indicated that Groupama 3 was going to be loaded onto a cargo ship around 13th March with an arrival at the technical base in Lorient scheduled a month later.

The skipper also specified that the current assessment still hadn't revealed the reasons behind the breakage of the float between the forward crossbeam and the port foil casing: "We're going to discuss all this with the architects, the yard and the structural engineers. If this amounts to a design fault, then that means we were wrong but sailing remains a mechanical sport... We have a working base, which defines the stresses that the boat should be able to withstand and in the general project strategy, we never wanted to take risks: we didn't put any less carbon in it than for Geronimo! We may have to look at our calculations again but the concept isn't at fault. The way Groupama 3 handled, its sensations at the helm, its performance and its Atlantic records confirm that the project is viable: we want to head back out again next winter with a trimaran, which will handle in the same type of way, but without any doubts in the back of our minds about the reliability of the boat! ..."

Vendee Globe

Following the presentation of his project at the Dusseldorf Boat Show last month, Norbert Sedlacek has remained busy preparing his boat Nauticsport Kapsch for her entry in the Vendee Globe 2008-2009. During the show, he was able to announce that he has signed a new partnership with the Swiss watchmaker, Chronoswiss, and since then has been busy at work at the boatyard. Several hundred litres of paint, laqueur and anti-fouling have been prepared and the boat's colours are ready to be applied in the coming days. For several weeks, the team have been concentrating on the keel head mechanism, as this requires some fine tooling and precision work, in order to avoid the sort of problem, which forced the Austrian to retire from the last Vendee Globe. The first sea trails are planned for April, but before that there will be another occasion for the crowds to take a look at the project at the Tulln Boat Show in Austria on 6th March.

Sam Davies's preparations for the Vendee Globe 2008-2009 have been continuing over the past few weeks in Lorient. Her monohull, Roxy has been fitted with new daggerboards, the roof has been extended and two new winches installed. The team is busy working on the paintwork on the Open 60, aboard which the English yachtswoman will be setting sail from les Sables d'Olonne in November. The deck is once again brilliant white and Roxy's colours are due to be applied this week. Meanwhile, Sam has been doing some weather training with the router, Jean-Yves Bernot in Port La Foret. This week, she is looking forward to training alongside Isabelle Joschke, as she gets ready for the Solitaire du Figaro.

Over the past few weeks, Derek Hatfield's campaign has been making progress. Following the Toronto and Vancouver Boat Shows, the Spirit of Canada team was pleased to announce that 5000 individual supporters have now contributed to the appeal and will have their name be painted on the hull of the Open 60. The aim of the campaign is to support the first Canadian boat to take part in the Vendee Globe and they hope to reach 10,000 signatures before the start in Les Sables d'Olonne. Some local fans have even signed up twice, no doubt tempted by the lucky draw, which will allow one of the supporters to win a trip aboard Spirit of Canada.

Audi MedCup

Audi AG has signed a three-year contract to become the title sponsor of the MedCup Circuit which will feature the TP52 Class racing in six regattas over five months in four countries.

Now in its fourth year the circuit, to be called the Audi MedCup Circuit, features the TP52 Class. It is the world’s leading regatta circuit, the keelboat racing class of choice for America’s Cup teams, professional sailors, owner-drivers, Olympic Champions and Royalty.

Last year the circuit featured five events with a total of 24 teams from 12 countries competing in a mixture of inshore windward-leeward courses and short, day-long coastal races.

For 2008 the Audi MedCup Circuit will run between early May and mid-September. This year the circuit will also feature a sixth event and with just two months to run to the entry deadline already the fleet looks to be every bit as impressive as last year’s. Currently no fewer than eight new TP52 yachts are in the final stages of construction around the world, all to be launched and made race ready before the first regatta in May where they will join the already impressive fleet. To add to that a seriously impressive line-up of top international sailing stars are already committed to competing for the title of Audi MedCup Circuit Champion.

Clipper Leg 7

At 1530 local time (0730 GMT) on Sunday a horn sounded across Fuschan Bay, Qingdao, signalling the start of Race 7 of the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race to Hawaii. The race restart marked the end of a successful stopover in Qingdao's Olympic Sailing Centre, which acted as a dress rehearsal for the sailing events of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The ten-strong international fleet crossed the start line in approximately ten knots of breeze from the south west, flying their Yankee One headsails at the start of the 4,400-mile race across the Pacific from China to Hawaii.

Following an extremely close and challenging upwind race from Singapore to Qingdao, the next stage of the race to Hawaii is expected to deliver some strong downwind conditions. Race 7 is the longest race of the Clipper 07-08.

The fleet's stopover in Qingdao marks the second time the Clipper Race has visited the city, giving the Olympic Sailing Committee further experience in hosting large-scale sailing events ahead of organising the sailing events of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Groupama Towed

After arriving at the scene of their capsize on Tuesday evening (UT), the crew have spared no effort clearing the area surrounding the trimaran in order to see through the righting operations envisaged in open water.

Unfortunately, despite several attempts Franck Cammas and his crew didn't manage to turn Groupama 3 the right way up. As a result it was decided that they would tow the maxi-trimaran to Dunedin, over 70 miles away. Currently making 3 knots of headway, the support vessel towing Groupama 3 is expected in the New Zealand port overnight (UT).

These details were sent to us by Yves Parlier, who remained on shore to ensure the link between the sailors and the shore crew, directed by Stephane Guilbaud based in Lorient. Yves is also in charge of communicating weather data to the crew, which has been prepared by Richard Silvani from Meteo France.

New Syndicate for VOR

Carbon Challenge are aiming to be the final confirmed entrant in the world's most watched ocean Race. Once we receive the necessary support to achieve this, it will allow us to use our high profile throughout the race's 37,000 nautical mile course and 9 month duration to highlight the global warming emergency.

Our challenge is to be a competitive force in the race while, in our complete activities as a sailing campaign, emitting a carbon footprint which is 20% below that of a typical Volvo Ocean Race team.

Our residual carbon footprint will be offset using Gold Standard carbon offsets, so making Carbon Challenge carbon neutral throughout its campaign, just as the rest of Carbon Challenge's operating units will remain carbon neutral throughout their lifetimes.

Using a pre-campaigned boat our crew will have a harder job keeping up with the rest of the field. But that is part of the challenge - to outperform expectations by being carbon conscious rather than in spite of being carbon conscious.

Mutua Madrilena Finishes BWR

Spanish skippers Javier "Bubi" Sansó and Pachi Rivero jubilantly crossed the finish line early this morning, 19th February, in Barcelona onboard Mutua Madrileña at 00:18:40 GMT making them the fourth boat to race home in the Barcelona World Race.

A fabulous welcome for the national team as they sailed into the Olympic port on home waters surrounded by spectator fleet, supporters, friends and family after an epic 99 days 12 hours 18 minutes and 40 seconds trip around the world.

Volvo Ocean Race

Norwayís Knut Frostad (40) has been appointed as Chief Executive of the Volvo Ocean Race. Frostad, who has taken part in the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race four times, twice as skipper and manager of his own projects, will take up his position at race head quarters in Whiteley, UK, on 3 March.

With background in business management and administration, Frostad has also been a board member and industrial advisor to leading companies as well as a sought after business speaker in Europe.

The 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain on 4 October 2008, it will for the first time, take in ports in Asia. Spanning some 39,000 nautical miles, stopping at around 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world's premier yacht race for professional racing crews.