Humphreys and Crawford finish 4th in Archipelago Raid 2008
by Teresa Page 19 Jun 2008 07:37 BST
13-18 June 2008
After six days and five nights of intense and exhausting sailing, Conrad Humphreys and Ryan Crawford (Team BLUE® Oceans) finish the gruelling Archipelago Raid 2008 in fourth place.
At 0200 hrs (local time) this morning, the remaining 20 teams set off from Sandhamn to complete the final two legs of the race before crossing the finish line at Junibacken, in Stockholm at 1530 hrs (local time) this afternoon.
The past five days of sailing, navigating through the 100,000’s rocks and small islands of the Swedish, Finnish and Aland Archipelagos has taken it’s toll on the competitors and their F18 catamarans. Strong winds, unseasonably cold temperatures and sleep deprivation has affected everyone whilst some have been forced to retire from the race altogether due to boat damage.
Having sailed a consistent race from start to finish, on this; only their second time at the Archipelago Raid, Conrad and Ryan were just pipped to the post on the third place position by British rivals, Will Sunnucks and Simon Farren on X-Leisure. Conrad Humphreys, skipper of Team BLUE® Oceans comments: “The sailing was really hard today with really gusty conditions. But we sailed well and did what we needed to do – we got two good results and maintained our position. I’m really pleased with the improvement on last year’s result and coming 4th against such experienced F18 sailors is a great result [Conrad & Ryan came 13th in the 2007 edition].”
Conrad continues: “It's fantastic that the BLUE® Climate and Oceans Project as the environmental partner to the Archipelago Raid has been able to promote this beautiful natural region. All of the competitors that took part in the Archipelago Raid were invited to become champions for the environment by making a BLUE pledge. We hope that through these sporting ambassadors we can encourage anyone who has an interest in protecting the world's climate and oceans to do the same”.