Behind the scenes of Clipper racing

Former local champion, Rhiannon Masset tells us what it takes to win Clipper Round The World race

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Rhiannon and I was one of the first mates on the Clipper Race, the Clipper Round

00:24the World Race in 2019 to 2020 and today we are going out sailing, we're just having a

00:30little sail around the Solent with some lovely people on board and just showing them a little

00:34bit about learning about the race and how these boats work and how we do our training

00:39here at Clipper. Anyone can sign up to do the Clipper Race but there are four levels of

00:43training that each of those crew that sign up to do the race have to pass. It starts

00:47with the real basics, learning, literally learning the ropes, so safety on board is

00:52obviously key right at the beginning and all the way through, so it's an introduction

00:57to how everything works on the boats, then moving up to doing a course where you go offshore

01:02for the week and you just learn how to live on a board, cook on board, just surviving

01:08on board really and without coming back to shore. Level three, you get a bit more technical,

01:14you learn a bit more about sail trim and how all the sails work on the boat and then level

01:18four you complete with your race skipper for the race and other people in your team

01:24and that's really then the beginning of the race and people's adventure going forward

01:29to do the Clipper Race. I did the race that started in 2019 and I was on the boat sponsored

01:34by Qingdao. The race was unfortunately affected by Covid so I only made it the first half

01:40of the way around the world where we were leading, so we were in first place when that

01:44race was postponed, but fortunately the team did go on at the completion of the race to

01:49win the whole overall round the world race, so that was pretty incredible. Yeah, we won!

01:53Excellent, so what was that like? What does it take to win a race like this?

02:00I think it's an incredible experience and you all come together from all different walks

02:04of life, but actually everyone working together as a team, I think that's really what makes

02:11the differences from the top teams, the teams that maybe don't win all the races, and it's

02:16also the tiny little things, it's the tiny little things, I mean just going 0.1 knot

02:21faster of a whole day will equal hours and hours and hours of sailing faster and actually

02:28you'll arrive at the end of the race ahead of other boats, so it's really small margins

02:31because the boats are all one design, they're all the same boats you're competing in, so

02:35it's those little things pushing the boat as much as you can and safely as you can and

02:40also just enjoying it, as long as people are enjoying it, people are willing to work

02:43hard and do really well in the race. This race started in Portsmouth and is coming

02:48all the way around the world and coming back to Portsmouth which is incredible, it is the

02:52city where Clipper is based but it's also an incredible UK waterfront city, there is

02:58so much great sailing that goes around in the Solent and goes on locally across the

03:02channel as well, it's a perfect destination and it's really central and so many people

03:07are expecting to arrive tomorrow and it's going to be a really, really great event before

03:10race finish.