COUNTDOWN CONTINUES TO CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD RACE

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Thursday, August 27 2015 by SNTV

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Preparations were underway in London (25 August) as the countdown to the world's longest ocean race continued.

The 11 month, 40,000 nautical mile race gets underway on Sunday (30 August), meaning crews have just a few days left to prepare their vessels.

First to kick off the naming ceremonies, was Clipper Race charity Unicef, who officially named its yacht in the Race Village.

And Unicef Executive Director Robert Bull hailed the event ' a very special day'. He said, "I've been doing something I've never done before and never thought I would do, which is naming this wonderful yacht 'Unicef,' which is going to sail around the world with an amazing crew of people and all the other boats.

As well as that, the carnival spirit was well and truly alive to make sure that teams got into the swing for the first leg of their epic adventure - which will see sailors eventually arrive in Rio after three weeks on the water. Awaiting the competitors is their first major ocean crossing, the Atlantic.

Routing towards the Canaries, the weather will become warmer as competitors seek the trade winds to take them towards the Equator. Their days should be full of warm sun, a constant breeze with the spinnaker flying and boat speeds of 30 knots.

Race Director Justin Taylor had some words of advice for the amateurs about to set sail on the adventure of their lives. " pay attention to the weather, study it, start looking at it now, seven, six days out from the race start. It's the key, pretty much, to everything is getting their weather route right".

The departure ceremony on 30 August starts at 1pm local time (1200 UTC) and will be streamed live. The fleet's final parade down the River Thames out of London to the start line begins at 4pm (1500 UTC) when Tower Bridge will open in salute as all twelve teams pass through to start their global marathon. The Clipper 2015-16 Race will finish back in London on 30 July 2016.

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