Mark Markey, 42, a marketing director from Clogherhead, Co Louth, is delighted to be named in the Cork crew. “I’m really happy! Ever since Cork was announced as an entry I’ve wanted to be in this team. Today’s been fantastic. Our skipper Richie’s a great guy and we’ve got a really good group of people in the team. I’m doing Leg 1 and I’m on the waiting list for Leg 7, so I’m really hoping I’ll get the chance to race into Cork as well.”
Mark was one of more than 300 adventurers who travelled from all over the world to England and Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard on Saturday 30 May to discover which of the ten teams competing in Clipper 09-10 they will represent. Three-quarters of the 422 men and women who will be taking part in this gruelling challenge of a lifetime came together to meet their skippers and new team mates, travelling from as far afield as Perth in Western Australia, Oman, China, Nova Scotia in Canada, across the UK and Ireland.
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the only global competition where people from all walks of life can step out of their comfort zones and sign up to race 35,000-miles around the world. They come from backgrounds as varied as marketing executives, nurses, bankers, engineers and chief executives who represent more than 30 nationalities.
The Crew Allocation event is much-anticipated among those who have signed up to take part in this race around the globe. This is where the reality of their participation in the race truly begins to kick in; with a skipper in place, team strategies start to take shape, roles are assigned to the crew and, with exactly 105 days to go until the race start, the countdown is on.
Cork will be under the expert guidance of skipper Richie Fearon, 27. Richie, who has sailed for most of his life in Co. Donegal, says “I’m really pleased with the team I have – we’re all looking for the same thing from the race and we’re gelling well together. We’ve made a good start today on putting our campaign together. I’m sure we’re going to do Cork proud.”
The race is contested by ten identical stripped down 68-foot racing yachts, each sponsored by a city, region or country. As well as Cork, already confirmed for Clipper 09-10 are Hull & Humber, representing the host port for this edition of the race, Uniquely Singapore, Qingdao, Cape Breton Island and California. The remaining four yachts will be named in the coming weeks ahead of the race start from the Humber, on the east coast of England, on 13 September 2009.
Cork is sponsored by Fáilte Ireland, Cork County Council and Cork City Council, with aim of driving tourism and inward investment to the region. To this end representatives from Cork County Council along with the other international sponsors attended a symposium prior to the Crew Allocation event.
The Clipper Race was founded by sailing legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to sail solo and non-stop around the world, and this will be the seventh time his teams of amateur sailors will circumnavigate the planet, taking the number of people who have taken part to more than 2,000.
Addressing the massed crews Sir Robin said, “It’s not easy to sail around the world. It is tough. But then why do it if it’s easy? Where’s the satisfaction? It’s doing the tough things in life that gives you satisfaction – take the hard route and afterwards look back on it and say, ‘I did something pretty special.’ That’s what all of you are doing.
“Bear in mind that more people have climbed Mount Everest now than have sailed around the world so what you are doing is very special. When you come back you will be different – we’ve seen it in every race. You’ll have faced nature in the raw, put up with the cold wave going down the back of your neck at 2 o’clock in the morning when you’d just woken up. But you’ll have achieved something you can be very proud of.
“When you come back I want to hear you say two things. One: ‘That’s the best thing I’ve done with my life.’ And the next thing, because then I know you really have benefitted, is when you turn around and say, ‘So far.’ Go on and live your lives, it’s what it’s all about.”
