Derry ~ Londonderry ~ Doire and Switzerland celebrate arrival in to New York

Derry~Londonderry~Doire and Switzerland have arrived in Liberty Landing Marina, Jersey City under the lights of the iconic Manhattan skyline.

Crossing the line in fourth place was Switzerland, skippered by Vicky Ellis who said the team has far surpassed where she thought she could get a team at this stage in the race as a skipper.

“What a fantastic city to come in to. The Clipper Race visits some fantastic places and they all look better from the water. We came just as dawn was coming up and all the city lights were sparkling and the Statue of Liberty was lit up - it was beautiful.“This race was an incredible dog fight the whole duration and to have the rival boats as close together as they were was intense. We had GREAT Britain barely a boat length away for several hours and other teams in sight pretty much the whole time. It was one of the closest races we have ever had and to be fighting with the top pack is a real lift for Switzerland and we really enjoyed it.”

Sean McCarter, skipper of the Derry~Londonderry~Doire yacht said his team was pleased with its fifth place position but hoped to improve on the next race into its home port.

“It’s been an amazingly close race which gets even closer as it goes on, we are all so evenly matched at the moment so there is no room for error. We had a good race. Leaving Jamaica we came quite quickly out of the blocks and made it past the first mark quite quickly in second or third position, then we had a good run up and we decided to break a little bit from the pack. Our plan was to drop out of the Gulf Stream to catch them up and we were looking good to do that for a while but we dropped out at a bad time.

 “There are still a lot of points on the board and we have seen how Henri Lloyd came in on this one winning the extra points. If you can manage that on the next race then you can expect to jump a position or two on the leaderboard, so I can imagine there will be a lot of teams looking to do that.”

Following the end of Leg 7 and Race 13: The Grange Hotels Trophy only 9 points separates Switzerland from Derry~Londonderry~Doire.

Vicky added: “We feel like things are really coming together for us, we had a great race to Brisbane back in Leg 4 and took a bit of a toll on Leg 5. Getting across the Pacific was certainly a ‘get across safe race’ and we really looked at picking back up the performance on Leg 7 and we were disappointed with the results on the first race down to Panama given how much effort the team put in. The race from Panama from Jamaica was great and secured us our second podium win of the series which we were excited for. Coming in fourth today we feel like we are on the podium given the battle we had with the leading teams. “

Click here for the latest ETAs for the remaining yachts in the Clipper Race fleet. 

You can also get up and close to a Clipper Race yacht during the Open Boat tours, click here for further information.