DAY 48 - Innovation Explorer Gaining on Club Med, Rips Gennaker, Team Legato Gaining on Warta Polpharma, No News on Status of Team Adventure Repairs
News - Friday, 02/16/2001, 7:16 AM GMT

Position	02/16/2001 7:16 AM GMT
1st	Club Med (5144 nm from finish. Slow upwind progress in the high pressure and current, avg speed 9.3 knots)
2nd	Innovation Explorer (848 nm from the leader. Went further east to go around one of the highs, avg speed 18.3 knots)
3rd	Team Adventure (6173 nm from leader. Arrived in Wellington at 11:50 AM GMT for 60-hour stop, work has already started, avg speed 0.0 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (6408 nm from the leader. Stopping in Wellington, slowed up in light winds of Tasman Sea, avg speed 12.7 knots)
5th	Team Legato (6958 nm from the leader. Gained ground on Warta with deep south approach but will lose time going north, avg speed 18.6 knots)
6th	PlayStation DNF

Club Med is Off Porto Alegre, Brazil, treading a delicate path between two anticyclones, one over Uruguay and the other over the Atlantic. She's sailing in north-northwesterly winds that are right on the nose. Once she reaches the latitude of 20 degrees south though, she'll pick up the south east trade winds and things will improve.

Dalton: "We are sailing in 20-25 knots of wind but we can't let the boat speed rise above 12 knots. We'd just destroy the boat if we did. As a result, we are sailing with three reefs and the storm staysail set. The waves are not enormous, about 2.5m [8.2ft] high, but have a really short wavelength. On a monohull, the rig would be the part which suffers the most, but on a multihull, it is the crossbeams which take the loads and shocks. The hulls are so far apart they are always in different wave trains - one is rising while the other is falling. The beams are the parts which keep them together and they are working overtime right now."

Innovation Explorer is gaining on Club Med making 18 knots, but will soon come up against two regions of high pressure that will slow them down. Last night they experienced a 2 to 3 meters rip in the large gennaker. They are currently repairing it, and now sailing under reacher.

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

No news as yet on the state of Team Adventure's repairs, they are due to put back to sea on February 17th, at 11.52 pm GMT.

Warta Polpharma wil be stopping for 2 hours for Immarsat repairs at the request of the race committee will get restitution at the finish for the time they are stopped.

Warta-Polpharma is now about 250 miles off Cape Farewell, the northernmost point of South Island, New Zealand. They will then have another 150 miles to travel to dock in Wellington, which they should do at the end of Friday afternoon.

Team Legato is enjoying settled westerly winds and seems to have decided to wait until the last possible moment to turn north towards Cook Strait.

Mike Gettinger has repaired both engines (he is responsible for the maintenance and well being of the generators and engines), having to crawl around in a tiny space filled with diesel fumes when the boat was doing 20 knots in rough and bumpy seas.

Kevin Pahl was one of the original boat builders to work on Team Legato (then called TAG Heuer), when she was built in Montreal, Canada, by Canadair.

Map images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to The Race site for a free download of the software.

Club Med in blue Innovation Explorer is in green Warta Polpharma is yellow

Team Adventure is in orange Team Legato is in brick-red PlayStation is in orange-red

Map images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to The Race site for a free download of the software.

Club Med in blue Innovation Explorer is in green Warta Polpharma is yellow

Team Adventure is in orange Team Legato is in brick-red PlayStation is in orange-red

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