THE RACE...TEAM ADVENTURE LEADS CLUB MED BY 14 MILES
by Keith Taylor on 13 Jan 2001
Team Adventure, one of two American
catamarans competing in The Race of the Millennium, grabbed back the lead
from her French rival Club Med today after a five-day marathon battle.
Team Adventure, skippered by Cam Lewis, from Lincolnville, ME, gained all
day yesterday as they two boats sped south from the Equator to the Cape of
Good Hope and moved to the front soon after dawn today. At the 3:00 PM GMT
position report Team Adventure was 16 miles ahead of Club Med. Four hours
later at the next report she was still 14 miles ahead of the French boat
skippered by New Zealander Grant Dalton.
The two boats have been carving parallel wakes down the South Atlantic from
a point just north of the Equator. They continued today, about 40 miles
apart on an east-west line, and this afternoon were off the Brazilian coast,
about 600 miles east of Rio de Janeiro. The boats' courses described a giant
arc around the St Helena high-pressure weather system, with Team Adventure
on the outside, as they fought to stay in the best possible breeze and away
from potential calms in the center of the high.
The pair is leading a fleet of six giant catamarans entered in The Race.
Following a start in Barcelona, Spain on New Year's Eve, the international
fleet is speeding 27,000 miles non-stop around the globe to a finish line
off Marseilles, France. The boats, from France, Britain the USA and Poland
are expected to take 60-65 days, eclipsing all previous records for sailing
circumnavigations of the world.
Co-navigator Larry Rosenfeld reported in a satellite email from the boat
today that crew morale was high, despite their second place in the standings
for the past week.
'This makes the crew feel even better to be recognized as the leader instead
having to rationalize it,' he said. 'Regaining the lead gives us more
confidence and makes us push a little harder in these stable trade wind
conditions.
'The last 24 hours was fantastic. Near sunset yesterday I drove for an hour
in 14-17 knots of wind. Get the hull flying and we are doing 27.5 to 28.5
knots. Drop it down and we are doing 23 knots. Its like to trying to pull a
wheelie on your bicycle for a city block . . . but we try to do it for an
hour at a time (25 miles)!
'Later, in my bunk in the windward hull, when we get airborne all goes quiet
and smooth - like being in a Hovercraft. Then we slow for a moment and the
hull lets down into the water. First I hear the folding prop snap shut with
the drag of the prop and shaft, the slap of the next wave against my ear,
and then the up and down motion of the hull bouncing over the tops of the
waves. Its far more pleasant at 27 knots when we are always flying, than at
23 knots when we are bouncing like a bronco.
'Our strategy is to stick with the Blue Boat (Club Med) and keep wearing
them down. We are feeling good about life with our protective cockpit wall
for the crew even in these very temperate latitudes. The feeling on board is
very good.
“We know we have a fast boat and our job now is to sail safely, to keep the
boat and us together without much down time. If we execute on this strategy
and make good weather routing/strategy decisions, we will be laughing. Of
course, its a long race still and we are all eagerly awaiting the next
phase - the Southern Ocean to Cook Strait.”
Team Adventure is a partner in a pair of innovative web sites.
www.nationalgeographic.com/teamrace, the web site of the National Geographic
Society, is the educational partner in the collaborative venture. The
National Public Radio affiliates WBUR in Boston, MA, at www.WBUR.org, and
WRNI in Providence, RI, at www.wrni.org, are the exclusive radio media
partners.
Monster(.com, the leading global online careers site and the flagship brand
of TMP Worldwide (NASDAQ: 'TMPW'; ASX: 'TMP'), has signed a Sponsor Level
Partnership - becoming the first major sponsor of the team.
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.yachtsandyachting.com/1513