On February 24, the 10-yacht fleet for the 2025-26 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race departed the Philippines and started to head for Qingdao. It marks that the Clipper Race has officially entered “time of Qingdao”. 

The current leg is the seventh of the 2025-26 Clipper Race (the second section of the fifth stage), the starting point and the finishing point of which are Subic Bay in the Philippines and Qingdao, respectively. The leg covers about 1,630 nautical miles of challenging waters. The teams are expected to navigate the demanding route over the next 10 days.

As the longest-standing partner of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, Qingdao ranks among the most popular and anticipated stops in the global route in all the previous sessions. This is the 10th consecutive time that Qingdao has joined hands with the Clipper Race.

In the second stage of the race (the starting point is Puerto Sherry, Spain, the finishing point is Punta Del Este in Uruguay), the Qingdao yacht wrapped up the competition in 27 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes and 24 seconds, navigated nearly 6,000 nautical miles and secured the third place. (Xu Nuo)