Burnham-On-Sea yachtsman Mark Preedy was celebrating in California on Wednesday (April 16th) after winning a closely-contested leg of the Round The World Yacht Race.
Burnham-On-Sea.com has closely followed Mark’s progress skippering the yacht ‘Uniquely Singapore’ on the 35,000 mile race which left Liverpool last September.
Uniquely Singapore managed to clinch its first win of the Round The World series and their first podium position of the race so far by stealing the honours over rival yacht Nova Scotia during Race 8 from Hawaii to Santa Cruz.
In a nail-biting finish, Mark’s crew managed to overtake Nova Scotia, the team representing the province of Canada, by just 35 minutes.
Mark and his crew were clearly elated. “I’m over the moon!” he exclaimed.
He told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “It seemed like a lot of the crew had settled for second place at the end until we started to see the lights of Nova Scotia on the final approach.”
“We kept going as we knew we had a good chance of getting closer and we kept pushing hard. We were the northerly boat so we had an advantage and when the wind died it was a bit of a free-for-all.”
“They chose to fly the spinnaker whilst we went for the windseeker and the wind came round the right way for us and we took them just before the line.”
A tactical decision to head north paid off for the team as they achieved more favourable wind angles and avoided the wind holes that beset the rest of the fleet further south.
Uniquely Singapore was the first of the ten internationally-sponsored yachts competing in the Round the World Yacht Race to arrive in Santa Cruz at the end of the latest 2,080-mile stage from Honolulu.
They were closely followed by Nova Scotia and both teams were greeted by a group of local volunteers and members of the Santa Cruz Yacht Club, who welcomed the crews and skippers to the Californian port.
During the teams’ short visit the fleet is being hosted by the Santa Cruz Yacht Club who will also host the prize-giving ceremony on Monday 21st April.
The Clipper Race is the only round the world yacht race for non-professional sailors and the amateur crews, representing 27 different nationalities across the ten teams, are each led by a professional skipper.
The Clipper Round The World Yacht Race began last September in Liverpool and lasts ten months. The overall race is divided into seven legs and a total of 14 individual races. Points are accumulated according to each race position, and the yacht with the highest total at the finish on 5th July wins the race trophy.
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