ClipperTelemed+ arrives into Albany

ClipperTelemed+ has arrived into Albany this afternoon, docking at 5pm local time/0900 UTC after finishing Race 3 in twelfth place.

After taking a tactical gamble to go furthest north in search of a better path to Albany,ClipperTelemed+ found itself stuck in the centre of a high pressure weather system in extremely light winds.

Race Director Justin Taylor offered a retirement option to the team on 23 November and Skipper Matt Mitchell accepted twelfth place and started motor-sailing. .

Upon arrival into Albany today, Matt said: "Thankfully my second Southern Ocean experience was a little kinder to me than the last time. We still saw some pretty big winds and gusts of 95 knots. We may have had too much sail up at the time, but the guys coped really well with it.

"We were really happy with our initial line and were keeping pace with the boats around us and were giving our all.

"There was some retraining to do as I was new for this race, and everyone was amenable to that.

"I saw a potential opportunity to get ahead of our (at the time) tenth place. We took a gamble and we lost massively. I certainly learnt a lesson there. On the face of all of that, the guys kept morale up and were really on the ball.

"We were sat in the wind hole for days and I took the decision to retire. There was a mixture of feelings when we turned on the engine. Initial jubilation about the fact we could start moving, however disappointment about the fact we did have to retire, and lots of talk of hindsight.

"We feel we have exhibited courage in taking the slightly different option but we have certainly taken lessons from it.

"The guys’ spirits have remained high throughout," Matt added.

South Korean round the world crew member Han Kim said: "The Southern Ocean was awesome. I had a fantastic time surfing in the huge waves. Our fastest surfing speed was 29.2 knots and everyone enjoyed competing. We learnt a lot from our new Skipper and it was a really good bonding experience despite the challenges.

"This was our longest race so far, but that meant we had longer on the boat which was good too," Han added.