JAMAICA sneaks into 7th place

Following yesterday's decision by the course committee to shorten the race due to very light winds lead boats Hull & Humber and New York have just crossed the revised finish line to claim a provisional 1-2.

Meanwhile at the interesting end of the race (no bias at all at jamaicaclipper.com) at 06:00 this morning JAMAICA had overtaken Western Australia to assume 7th place. But with some 100 miles for these boats to the Angel gate finish line there is still a long way to go.

As the race viewer shows WA is clinging to the coast of Mexico but in the last 12 hours they have experienced lighter winds covering just 22 miles. This has given JAMAICA the opportunity to overtake her and assume a wafer thin 6 miles lead, though a lead is what it is. If she manages to keep her nose ahead to the end of this race it will mark an incredible achievement for the crew who have been struggling with the very light conditions to get the Rasta Rocket in full flow.

However, closing in on the rails is Liverpool who, for the whole of this race, has taken a more westerly routing in search of stronger airs and it looks like this is now paying off as they have covered twice the distance of JAMAICA, WA and Durban in the past 12 hours and have just overtaken the South African entrant to be in 9th place.

Liverpool is only 20 miles behind JAMAICA. Having had all of their work pay off to overtake WA our crew will have it cut out to fend off Liverpool. But we know they can do it and get their just desserts.

Meanwhile, the most recent addition to the crew, Italian Ettore Filippini, writes exclusively for jamaicaclipper.com from on board JAMAICA. Although he's loving the experience the haute gastronomie on board leaves a lot to be desired .......

Hi Nick, there is a new country represent on JAMAICA Clipper.

I'm Ettore Filippini legger in leg 6, one of the 4 Italian crew member that join to Clipper 07-08.
I'm really happy to sail on this crazy boat, language is not a big problem, UK food is something that you can habit to.

Today is another hot day, sleeping in the bunk during the day is quite having a sauna.We are trying to speed up the boat as mach as possible to catch WA.

See you in Jamaica.

Ettore