Clipper Race: Gold Coast Australia is first to reach Batam

The victorious Gold Coast Australia team has arrived in Batam, Indonesia, at the end of Race 7 of the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race. They will wait here for the other nine 68-foot yachts competing in the world’s longest yacht race before all ten cross the Singapore Straits to Marina at Keppel Bay, Singapore, for a ceremonial arrival there on Saturday 28 January.
 
As he arrived in the marina at 0730 local time (0030 UTC), Gold Coast Australia’s skipper, Richard Hewson, described his joy at the team’s sixth win in the 15-race series.
 
The yachtsman, from Hobart, Tasmania, said, “We are feeling fantastic, it’s really good to get another win under our belt, but I definitely didn’t think we were going to win this one until the final hour. We worked very hard for it. There was just over an hour between us, around ten miles. It was just fantastic. It was really nice to be finishing that close and we really had the pressure on until the last moment.”
 
Describing the atmosphere on board as the team closed in on the finish line, Richard added, “It was really exciting. Towards the end I called a meeting around midnight and got everyone around. I said, ‘We’ve got 30 miles to go and we are neck and neck with Derry-Londonderry. We either go hard now and win, or we take it easy and there is a chance that we come second.’
 
“The guys really pitched in and we did a ‘super-watch’ for a good five or six hours and in the end we only won by a bit over an hour. I think if we hadn’t done that then Derry-Londonderry could have well taken us.”
 
During the race Gold Coast Australia headed much further north than the rest of the fleet before turning west to hook into a current that sped them to their victory.
 
“But the main reason we were that far north was to get into good trade winds to start with and they just didn’t eventuate. We ended up going up for a wind that just wasn’t there and drifting around for a fair few days. That current was definitely our saviour towards the end. I’ve done a lot of shipping in that area over the last few years and I’m very familiar with that current. Sometimes it flows up to four to five knots,” explained Richard.
 
Gold Coast Australia arrived with second placed Derry-Londonderry who secured their first podium finish of the campaign, narrowly beaten to second place by the Aussie team. Who finished just 79 minutes ahead of them in the 4,600-mile race from the Gold Coast.
 
Queenslander Wayne Reed, a former Gold Coast resident, said, “We are so proud. I can hardly stop smiling. It has been excellent. Six out of seven races – you can’t ask for much better except for a seventh one, but it has been excellent. We are really happy.
 
“The team has been very good. Everyone has been really focussed on doing well and, with every legger being changed over in Gold Coast, everyone was very enthusiastic, motivated and happy to be here. It was great. Everyone has really pulled together and had a great race.”
 
Wayne, who now lives in Townsville, continued, “This race been has had its ups and downs. It’s been very frustrating because we’ve had weather from zero wind to 60 knots in a flash. The 60 knots coming out of a clear blue sky and caught everyone unawares; it rounded us up and caused us to break our spinnaker pole. Luckily, we managed to save our spinnaker, our beloved heavy weight kite.
 
“It is good to be back on dry land. It has been a long race – it’s been our longest time that we have been at sea since we left Southampton. We’re looking forward to a bit of relaxation in Batam and to enjoy the local beers!”
 
Clipper 11-12 is the eighth edition of the event which is ‘raced by people like you’. Wayne, an Australian Army officer, and his fellow crew who include a surgeon, a sales assistant, a management consultant, a researcher and a nurse, have put their everyday lives on hold to compete in the challenge of a lifetime.
 
Demand from Australians for berths on forthcoming editions of the race is at unprecedented levels with hundreds attending presentations across the country in December and many who have already committed to taking part in Clipper 13-14, which will see the introduction of a brand new fleet of 12 state of the art 70-foot yachts.
 
To follow the Clipper Race and for more information about how to get on board, go to www.clipperroundtheworld.com.
 
The fleet will arrive on Saturday morning, 28 January, in Marina at Keppel Bay, the centrepiece of Keppel Bay’s premier waterfront precinct, the only residential development in Singapore to have its own world-class marina on its very own private island. This will be the fourth visit of the fleet to Keppel Bay, whose skyline is now dominated by the towers of the stunning new Reflections at Keppel Bay development, designed by master architect Daniel Libeskind.
 
In Singapore a busy programme of sailing and shore-side events will enable the sponsors of the Clipper Race, including Gold Coast Tourism, to leverage their partnership with the event to develop and build on trade, tourism, education and cultural links, while the Clipper Race will host a networking event at the British High Commission to introduce trade opportunities with their partners to Singaporean businesses.

- Clipper Media