‘California’ in the Hunt in Clipper Race

Despite not being able to fly their main for the last 12 hours, California is still within striking distance of the leaders in Race 7 — from Qingdao to San Francisco — of the ’09-’10 Clipper ‘Round the World Race. Buffeted by breeze of up to 50 knots — which thankfully is now pushing from astern — almost every boat has suffered breakdowns of one kind or another. California‘s has already dropped them two spots — from second to fourth — as the eight-boat fleet blasts downwind a few hundred miles east of Japan, led by overall frontrunner Spirit Of Australia.

"The crew are absolutely exhausted after enduring 50-plus-knot winds last night and making great speeds, when all of a sudden the second reef line snapped under the load, swiftly followed by five sliders detaching themselves from the mast," said California skipper Pete Rollason. "The joys of ocean racing: sometimes you cry out in exhilaration and sometimes you just want to cry! The main has now been down and off for 12 hours with ongoing repairs being completed when conditions allow; bear in mind we still have over 30 knots of wind. Hopefully we will be fully up-and-running before dark and pushing hard to regain our second place and resume the kangaroo hunt."

With a deficit of only 70 miles to Spirit of Australia, California has plenty of racetrack to make its way back to the top of the leaderboard — the boats still have over 4,000 miles to go before the finish in San Francisco. Bisecting the 5,600-mile monster of a leg is a scoring gate about 1,200 miles ENE of the boats’ current position, which represents an opportunity for our home-state boat to pick up some much-needed overall points. But for now, it’s a full-on surfing fest out there, with some teams sending their identical 68-ft, 66,000-lb battlewagons at speeds of up to 20 knots. The fleet is expected to arrive in San Francsico sometime around April 1, and will be stationed in the West Basin of the San Francisco Marina until April 11, when the next leg to Panama starts. We’ll keep you updated in ‘Lectronic Latitude; follow the race at the link above in between our updates.