The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is a sailing race around the world in 8 legs, with trained amateur crew members. The organisers own a fleet of identical yachts, the Clipper 70, and provide qualified skippers to lead each team. Crew can either sign up for the whole race, or one or more legs. The race was conceived in 1995 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who founded Clipper Ventures plc as a company to run the race. The race ran every two years between 1996 and 2002, and then skipped a year, with subsequent races beginning in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2017.
In contrast to the slightly older but now defunct Global Challenge the Clipper Race uses lighter, faster boats and the route follows the prevailing currents and winds. The current fleet of yachts are 12 Clipper 70 yachts first used in the 2013-14 race. The race has used two other previous classes of yacht comprising 8 Clipper 60s and 10 Clipper 68s.
The origins of the term "Clipper" in the race name comes from the historic tea clippers. In the 1830s tea clippers were small, fast, cargo carrying sailing ships. Premium prices were paid for the season's first consignment of tea from China to reach London. In the Great Tea Race of 1866, four such ships held an unofficial race, and this inspired the name of the modern day race. The eight Clipper 60 yachts were initially named after tea clippers including Ariel, Blackadder, Taeping and Thermopylae.
Great Tea Race of 1866
In the middle third of the 19th Century, the clippers which carried cargoes of tea from China to Britain would compete in informal races to be first ship to dock in London with the new crop of each season. The Great Tea Race of 1866 was keenly followed in the press, with an extremely close finish. Taeping docked 28 minutes before Ariel - after a passage of more than 14,000 miles. Ariel had been ahead when the ships were taken in tow by steam tugs off Deal, but after waiting for the tide at Gravesend the deciding factor was the height of tide at which one could enter the different docks used by each ship. The third finisher, Serica, docked an hour and 15 minutes after Ariel. These three ships had left China on the same tide and arrived at London 99 days later to dock on the same tide. The next to arrive, 28 hours later, was Fiery Cross, followed, the next day, by Taitsing.
Given the close finish, and fearing that the consignees might find reason to avoid payment, the prize, or "premium", was claimed by Taeping but shared between them and Ariel, by agreement of their agents and owners. 1866 was the last time that a premium was written into the bill of lading of a tea clipper for docking in London with the first of the new crop. Though clippers raced with cargoes of tea for a few more years, the only commercial advantage was in the reputation as a fast ship, thereby securing a better rate of freight in the future.
Ariel and Taeping, by Jack Spurling
