Clipper Round the World –race started in Finnish command
clipperroundtheworld.com The crew of Team Finland has 46 members between ages of 19-69. Ten of them will take part in the entire race.Clipper Round the World started in Finnish command, when Team Finland, led by the Finnish skipper Eero Lehtinen won the first race from Humber on the southeast-coast of England to La Rochelle in France.
- It was a good warm up. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that we've actually started the race and that it's actually happening. It was almost too easy to be honest; we didn't tack once on the way from the Humber to La Rochelle. We did 740 miles averaging more than 10 knots, so it was pretty good sailing, says skipper Eero Lehtinen.
Clipper Round the World 09-10 has ten participating fleet. The race continues on September 22nd from La Rochelle to Rio de Janeiro, where the first leg of the competition will also terminate.
The competition consists of eight legs of one or more races. The entire journey is approximately 35 000 miles long, and if everything works out according to the schedule, the yachts should arrive back to the departure port on July 17th next year.
One of the most significant differences between Clipper- race and others, such as the Volvo Ocean Race, is that all the yachts are identical, and excluding the skippers, all the crew members are amateurs. Some of the crew will change along the way.
The crew of Team Finland consists of a total of 46 members from 19 different countries. Ten of them will take part in the entire race. There are two Finnish members. While 20-year old student Emil Vartiainen will take part in the entire race, Anna Soisalo will join the team only for the last leg which starts in May next year.
Eero Lehtinen, 45, sails now around the world for the third time. His first round the world journey took place during Whitbrad competition in 1989. He has crossed the Atlantic nine times. Lehtinen lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with his wife and three children.
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