AMATEUR sailor Barry Coulton from Christchurch has been forced to pull out of the Clipper Round the World yacht race.

The company director blamed family reasons for his decision to quit the 15-man crew of the Bristol Clipper, currently lying in fourth place in the 11-month odyssey which set out from Liverpool in October.

Due to business commitments Barry, 57, who runs his own instrumentation company on the Airfield Estate at Somerford, had originally planned to sail only the first half of the race and return home in April when the fleet reached Hong Kong at the end of the trans-Pacific third leg.

But after crossing the Atlantic to Cuba on the 5,000-mile first leg and navigating the Panama Canal at Christmas before a New Year stopover in the Galapagos Islands, Barry withdrew before the fleet set out across the Pacific to Hawaii.

His unscheduled departure midway through the 6,100-mile second and longest leg of the race has come as a great disappointment to his crew mates, who gave him the nickname of Big Bad Baz.

Bristol Clipper diarist Matt Lloyd recorded: "We also had to say an unwelcome and unscheduled goodbye to Big Bad Baz."

"Due to family illness Barry has had to return to the UK and he really will be missed by the boat and me personally.

"He has been on Bravo watch since Portugal and we have enjoyed all of his amazing stories about life."

A former aerobatics pilot, Barry had lived in Africa for many years working as a bush pilot but he rated the Clipper race as his biggest adventure.

"To sail the oceans of the world has always been one of the greatest challenges," he said before embarking on the round the world race.