VELUX 5 OCEANS veterans Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Derek Hatfield and John Hughes are to do battle in Canadian waters as part of a week-long sailing festival. The three renowned solo sailors will go head to head in the Clash of the Legends race today, just one of the many events organised for the Cape Breton stopover of the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race.
Canadians Hatfield and Hughes will have the upper hand over the UK’s Sir Robin, the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world, when they race around their home turf of Cape Breton Island’s Sydney Harbour at 10am local time. The presentation race falls in the middle of a week of festivities to welcome the ten Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race boats. The yachts, crewed mostly by amateurs, are on the seventh and final leg of their 35,000-mile circumnavigation.
Sir Robin, founder of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and chairman of the VELUX 5 OCEANS race, said: “It is wonderful to be sailing against Derek and John in the Clash of the Legends race as part of the Clipper fleet’s Cape Breton stopover. They are Canada’s most respected ocean sailors and all three of us have competed in the VELUX 5 OCEANS. It is great to be able to bring three veterans of the race together to help celebrate the arrival of the ten Clipper yachts to Cape Breton.”
Hatfield is a veteran of the 2002/3 VELUX 5 OCEANS race in which he came third in Class Two. He will be flying the flag for Canada again this year when he returns to the race with his Eco 60 yacht Spirit of Canada, which he has just delivered across the Atlantic from France. Hughes raced in the 1986/7 edition of the race, completing the circumnavigation in 189 days to finish eight in Class Two.
The VELUX 5 OCEANS, run by Clipper Ventures PLC, starts from La Rochelle in France on October 17 and features five ocean sprints. After heading from La Rochelle to Cape Town, the race will then take in Wellington in New Zealand, Salvador in Brazil and Charleston in the US before returning back across the Atlantic to France.