Yorkshire captain meets Clipper crew who will share in round the world adventure

Roy Taylor, from Barnsley, who will captain a team competing in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Picture: onEdition

A Yorkshireman chosen to captain one of 12 teams competing in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race met with members of his crew for the first time this weekend.

Roy Taylor, a former RAF weapons technician, joined the other skippers and hundreds of crews members in Portsmouth yesterday to hear who would be sailing in each of the teams.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Mr Taylor said: “The race starts now really. If you don’t get the preparations right, nothing else is really going to fall into place.

“It’s about starting the process of communication, getting them to focus on what they want as a team.

“What you need to work out is the common ground. One of the things is we’ve all signed up for a rather big adventure.”

Mr Taylor, 47, of Barnsley, will lead a team of 56 men and women over the course of eight legs.

They include nine novices who will sail the whole way round the globe after departing from Liverpool on August 20.

The crew includes members from Europe, Taiwan, India and New Zealand as well as fellow Yorkshireman James Hetherton, who is the third member of his family to take part.

Mr Taylor said: “Everyone was really very excited and giddy yesterday.

“One of the exercises was for everybody to introduce someone else in the team and describe how they felt in one work – excited and apprehensive were the main two.”