DAY 27 - Cam Lewis not Recruiting more Crew, Will Depart with Ten
News - Friday, 01/26/2001, 6:20 AM GMT

Position	01/26/2001 6:20 AM GMT
1st	Club Med (Approaching Cook Strait, avg speed 23.2 knots)
2nd	Innovation Explorer (936 nm from the leader, keeping up the pace with Club Med, avg speed 22.9 knots)
3rd	Team Adventure (3208 nm from the leader. Leaving Cape Town Friday morning, will continue with 4 less crew, avg speed 0.0 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (3574 nm from leader. Surging ahead in the roaring forties, may take 3rd place away from Team Adventure, avg speed 20.6 knots)
5th	Team Legato (4751 nm from the leader. Still in the St. Helena's High, avg speed 7.0 knots)
6th	PlayStation (9527 nm from the leader. Has reached Palm Beach, Florida, officially RETIRED)

In an interview, Cam Lewis was asked specifically if he would take on more crew, his response was that they will leave with 10. Note that Team Legato is sailing with a team of 10. They have worked out a new watch system to make up for the four missing crew.

The Race rules are quite clear on this point: Each competitor’s skipper may only put ashore members of his crew during The Race period for medical reasons. Any members of the crew put ashore may not be replaced.

Team Adventure will leave Cape Town, Friday at 9.00 am GMT, Unfortunately Team Adventure will face headwinds of 20 knots. Cam Lewis and team will be taking the hard workers on a cruise before departing.

The repairs are complete, the epoxy resin needs time overnight to cure properly.

Rosenfeld said the boat would take aboard the boat building crew that has labored continuously for the past four days to complete the repairs. They will help set sail and make a couple of speed runs, sampling the awesome power of the big cat before they disembark and Team Adventure turns her bows south to the Roaring Forties.

For Grant Dalton the best strategy right now is to stay in the 25 to 30 knot winds which are driving him toward the Great Australian Bight (the bite-shaped stretch of the South Australian coast between Cape Leeuwin in the West and Adelaide in the east.

The bulkheads and the underside of the deck on Club Med are dripping wet. Nothing dries out aboard the catamaran, there are constant blasts of spray. At such speeds the salt water hits the watch members hard in the face and transforms the once more or less "inhabitable" hulls into a noisy, wet, cold pit. There is no way to dry your oilskins or your polar thermal underwear. Thursday they had a few hours of sunlight, the first in the last few days - they siezed the opportunity to dry out some gear.

Innovation Explorer. With a less-than-complete sail inventory and her gennaker somewhat tattered, the maxi-cat needs to be sailing in 20 to 25 knots. She covered more than 400 miles today, only 8 miles less than Club Med, and crossed the Greenwich meridian.

Loïck Peyron onboard Innovation Explorer spotted an iceberg. They joked that it made the team happy because, "as promised in the brochure, we have seen an iceberg up close."

They are flying 1,200 sq. yards of canvas, using the big gennaker, the staysail and the mainsail. Thay have also lowered the big gennaker and tested the patched reacher. Loïck Peyron: "It’s not too bad. We have taken the opportunity to repair one or two small tears on the leech of our biggest headsail, which we are using a lot at the moment". Innovation Explorer is using a heating system to dry out some of the moisture.

When they reach their next target, the Kerguelen Islands they may lose some ground due to rougher seas in the shallower waters of the underwater shelf surrounding the islands.

From the NOW live tracker, www.now.com

Innovation Explorer is in turqoise Club Med in yellow Team Adventure is green

PlayStation is in red Warta is orange Team Legato is blue

Warta Polpharma is making good ground in the roaring forties, and may move into 3rd place. The question still remains as to when they will put in to repair their electronics. Darius Drapella: "At the moment we can’t use the standard B system. The antenna can’t make contact with the satellite".

Team Legato is in light winds, and the wind will go into the south tomorrow on her nose. The gap between Roman Paszke and Team Legato has stretched to over 1,000 miles.

From the NOW live tracker, www.now.com

From the NOW live tracker, www.now.com

PlayStation has retired from The Race. In an email from Stan Honey, navigator, he says that the maxi-cats has docked in Palm Beach, Florida as of 4 PM Thursday.

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