Geraldton Western Australia has finally broken their podium drought in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race.

The Mid West-backed yacht finished third in race 7 and was handed its first pennant of the campaign to fly proudly from the forestay of the boat.

Fellow Australian yacht, Gold Coast Australia, finished first again — their sixth race win — to extend their overall competition lead.

They beat Derry-Londonderry to Nongsa Point Marina, Indonesia by just 79 minutes.

The 4,600-mile race began at the Gold Coast, Queensland, and finished in Indonesia last week.

After celebrating Australia Day together with a friendly cricket match and plenty of drinks and food, the Australian teams led the 10-yacht fleet to Marina at Keppel Bay, Singapore, for the trophy presentation.

Geraldton Western Australia round the world crew member Ian Geraghty could not have been more excited to collect the team’s first pennant on Saturday.

“The anticipation of standing on that podium in Singapore is just something that we have all dreamed about,” he said.

“We have seen what it is like for the other teams, we’ve been watching them up there and for us it was absolutely brilliant to be looking back at the other people and waving saying, come-on, we’ve done it.”

As he arrived in the marina skipper, Juan Coetzer, described his joy at coming third and taking to the podium for the first time in the 15-race series.

“We had a good start in Gold Coast. We took on board some local knowledge staying in shore and tactics paid off really well,” he said.

“We were leading the fleet for the first 20 to 48 hours, then it became a bit of a fight between us and Gold Coast Australia.

“Towards the race finish we were swapping positions with Qingdao throughout and it was good to end in third place.”

Despite the third place finish Geraldton Western Australia are ninth in the overall standings (31 points), with Gold Coast Australia leading (73 points).

The fleet will set sail from Marina at Keppel Bay on Saturday, February 4, bound for Qingdao, China.