Leg 6 Penalty Points

The Race Committee has announced the penalty points for the Race 9 Seattle Pacific Challenge from Qingdao, China to Seattle, USA.

During Leg 6, the fleet spent approximately four weeks at sea, battling the range of harsh conditions the mighty North Pacific Ocean threw at it during the toughest race of the series.

Penalty points are allocated because of damage sustained to sails and other equipment during racing and are designed to encourage crew look after and maintain their yachts throughout the race.

Explaining the allocation of the penalties, Race Director Justin Taylor says: “The penalty point system’s primary function is to try and encourage good seamanship. Once the teams have met the penalty threshold the points are allocated, however in some cases the Race Committee decides that damage is not caused by poor seamanship but by the ferocity of the sea conditions. For example when a yacht is hit by a large wave, containing several dozen cubic metres of seawater. A cubic metre of seawater weighs just over 1 tonne!”

Points are accumulated over a period of time. Once a team reaches £500 worth of equipment damage or necessary repair work one penalty point is allocated with two points for sail damage.

The following teams have received penalty points for Leg 6:

4 points: Garmin (sail damage)
3 points: ClipperTelemed+ (2 for sail damage and 1 for equipment damage), Mission Performance (2 for sail damage and 1 for equipment damage)
2 points: Qingdao (sail damage)
1 point: Unicef (equipment damage)

Teams LMAX Exchange, Da Nang – Viet Nam and Derry~Londonderry~Doire also received damage during the race, but did not hit the threshold to be charged points.

Meanwhile IchorCoal, PSP Logistics, Visit Seattle and GREAT Britain sustained no damage throughout the 5,400 nautical mile challenge.

The results of the Race 10 PSP Logistics Panama Cup and allocation of penalty points have had an impact on the Overall Race Standings. Qingdao, which crossed the line in sixth place has moved up a place to fifth overall, which in turn sees Mission Performance drop to sixth.

Meanwhile Unicef continues to climb the rankings following its second consecutive podium finish and, despite receiving one penalty point for damage, has traded places with IchorCoal, to move into eighth place overall.

To see the updated Overall Race Standings click here.

To read a further explanation on penalty points see Sailing Decisions/Incidents section on our FAQs page.