#clippperrace – UK based Clipper Ventures, organisers of the 40,000 mile Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, has signed its first comprehensive Chinese broadcast deal today with Beijing Television.

Beijing Television (BTV) will follow the Chinese team in the 2015-16, tenth edition of the unique biennial event established by British yachting legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston and aimed at complete novices who are trained to take on the world's most challenging oceans under the command of professional skippers.

The Clipper Race already produces generic sports and human adventure programming distributed by BBC Worldwide, but is developing additional territory specific co-production partnerships to focus on individual national teams and participants.

"It is the first time we have embarked upon a co-production of this scale to produce a comprehensive Chinese language documentary series, news, sports and online coverage about the Clipper Race which will focus on the entry from the former Beijing 2008 Olympics sailing city of Qingdao," explained Clipper Ventures Global Business and Communications Director Jonathan Levy.

In the 2013-14 edition of the Clipper Race the Beijing Television Documentary Channel followed crew member Vicky (Kun) Song as she became the first Chinese woman to sail around the world, in a highly acclaimed documentary series. Building on the success of this collaboration, the new partnership will follow every twist and turn of the Chinese crew's adventure as their tough global challenge unfolds across the BTV network over the year-long ocean odyssey, culminating in the 'behind-the-scenes' real life documentary series.

BTV Documentary Channel Director Mr Chen Dali signed the agreement with Clipper Ventures at today's ceremony at the Beijing International Film Festival Documentary Section: "This is a very exciting partnership with the organisers of this remarkable event. We will be able to follow the human story of this unique challenge as the Chinese crew complete their training and embark on this life-changing experience.

"We will not only have our own cameraman aboard the Qingdao yacht for the whole race but we will also have rights to access all the official race footage from a range of fixed and manned cameras on Qingdao and all the other competing boats, in addition to helicopter, on-water and land based cameras."

BTV is available nationally on its satellite channels and on-line as well as a rapidly growing cable/IPTV distribution across China, especially in major urban centres such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, ChangChun, Harbin, Jinan, Chengdu and Kunming, etc.

New innovative services are also being pioneered in China by BTV. They have established Beijing Internet Broadcasting Station Work Base, which incorporates web, IPTV, mobile terminal services and Weibo/Wechat social media platforms.

Mr Levy added: "I am looking forward to working with Beijing Television on this ground breaking Chinese production partnership. I am confident it will generate a compelling multi-channel viewing experience culminating in a high quality real life adventure series."

A BTV cameraman is already undergoing training in the UK with some of the Chinese crew. The Clipper 2015-16 Race will start from the UK at the end of August and take six months to reach Qingdao, China. The race route visits ports in Brazil, South Africa, Australia and South East Asia before arriving in China. It will then head across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the USA, through the Panama Canal to the east coast of the USA before returning to Europe, Northern Ireland, The Netherlands and back to the UK in summer 2016.