Clipper Festival exceeds all expectations

More than 50,000 spectators attended the first weekend of the Clipper Homecoming Festival in Derry-Londonderry, it was revealed today.

Derry City Council Chief Executive Sharon O’Connor said: “We are delighted at the success of the festival. The city has now hosted a series of high profile events, Clipper being the most ambitious, and we are confident that the response bodes very well in the build to City of Culture.”

Ms O’Connor said that all week the city has been enjoying an international flavour: “We hope that people who have never been here before now realise that this is a contemporary, forward-looking and welcoming city – and come again.”

Clipper Round the World Race chairman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was among the guests at a Corporate Event for Clipper staff, partners and sponsors. He said the welcome in the city was “fantastic” and had exceeded everyone’s expectations.

“It’s the first time we have been in Londonderry and I hope it won’t be the last,” he said. “I have never seen such queues of people waiting to see the boats or experienced a welcome that has been so truly heart-warming

“The city has done a really wonderful job – and one of the great things about it is that people from the wider area have been involved, right across the North West and into Donegal. The best thing of all, however, is the legacy that Clipper will leave behind.

“I don’t just mean the magnificent new pontoon, which can now welcome new visitors, or the return visits from private boats which are now moored in the marina, but the potential for the port to become a ‘must stop’ location for the international sailing fraternity.

“I have never sailed these waters myself,” said the first man to circumnavigate the globe, single-handed and non-stop. “I have to admit that I am smitten and hope to return in a private capacity in the near future. But not on a clipper – I much prefer one-handed sailing!”

Welcoming the Clipper team and Corporate guests, Derry’s Mayor, Councillor Kevin Campbell, said that the city had greatly changed since the Derry-Londonderry yacht had left a year ago, and that more changes were on the way.

“The investment that has been made in the city, and the way the people of the city have worked together, has changed the way we live and improved the quality of life of everyone who lives here,” he said. It’s going to be a busy 18 months, but we have shown we have what it takes to succeed on the international, as well as national, stage.”

The Clipper 11-12 Maritime and Home Coming Festival is organised by Derry City Council in partnership with Londonderry Port. It is supported by Northern Ireland Tourist Board, MalinWaters as part of the Sail West Project marine tourism initiative, part financed by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund through INTERREG IVA Cross-Border Programme, Invest Northern Ireland, Loughs Agency, Ilex URC, FG Wilson, Diageo and event partners Translink.

More information on the rest of the Clipper Homecoming Festival programme here.