Olympic silver medallist Heather Fell will join Clipper Round the World Yacht Race team Jamaica Get All Right in its home port next week to sail the remainder of the race.
The world’s longest ocean race, uniquely for amateur sailors and known as one of the toughest endurance challenges on the planet, will be Heather’s first major sporting challenge since she retired from professional competition earlier this year in January.
Heather, 31, will fly to Jamaica next week join the team to depart in Race 13 (of 16) from Port Antonio, Jamaica to New York on 24th May. On 7th June, the Clipper Race fleet departs New York to start its long awaited final, homecoming leg, racing via Northern Ireland and the Netherlands to arrive in London on 12 July, where it originally started on 1st September, 2013.
Beijing 2008 silver medallist Heather said having only recently retired from the Modern Pentathlon, the Clipper Race would be a completely new challenge but she is hoping to use as many of her skills gained through her professional career to help her through this race.
“My small amount of sailing experience is insignificant in the scale of this but I can’t wait for the challenge. The taster I experienced during the Clipper Race training has made me realise what I’m letting myself in for. I’ve got a mixture of extreme nerves combined with huge excitement.”
Fell, who lives in Bath, first stepped on a Clipper Race boat as a child in the inaugural race in 1996 when she visited the fleet in Plymouth before it set off round the world.
“Having been brought up in the West Country I’ve never been far from the sea and had the opportunity to do a bit of dinghy sailing when I was younger. In 1996 the Clipper Race boats came down to Plymouth for the first ever race and I remember it being a huge event,” she said.
“It was something that seemed so amazing and huge that I wouldn’t have even dared to dream about. It never occurred to me that I might get the opportunity to join the race later on. Now I can’t wait to get on board and start the adventure,” she added.
The Clipper Race, now in its ninth edition is held every two years and is the brain child of Sir Robert Knox–Johnston who was the first man to perform a single handed circumnavigation of the globe.
His idea was to offer the chance for people from all walks of life to share the experience of sailing around the world.
