DAY 61 - Club Med 100 miles from Tarifa, Spain. Innovation Explorer in the Low. Team Adventure passing the Falklands. Warta Polpharma, we have our Fingers Crossed for You. Team Legato Still Struggling in Light Air.
News - Thursday, 03/01/2001, 7:45 PM GMT

Position	03/01/2001 7:45 PM GMT
1st	Club Med (801 nm from finish. 100 miles from Tarifa, Spain, riding low to the finish, avg speed 21.7 knots)
2nd	Innovation Explorer (1224 nm from the leader. At the Canaries, hooked into winds, avg speed 17.8 knots)
3rd	Team Adventure (6003 nm from leader. Heading towards Falklands, avg speed 12.8 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (6428 nm from the leader. Expecting fierce conditions at The Horn, avg speed 17.9 knots)
5th	Team Legato (9049 nm from the leader. Struggling in light winds, avg speed 5.6 knots)
6th	PlayStation DNF

cat-alist Estimated arrival dates and Positions
1st	Club Med	Saturday, March 3rd - lunchtime
2nd	Innovation Explorer	Monday, March 5th - evening
3rd	Team Adventure	around March 18th
4th	Warta Polpharma	around March 21st
5th	Team Legato	around March 30th

The finish line is in the Western Mediterranean, by Marseille.
The finish line is the length of The Catalans. Once the leading maxi-cat finishes, they will dock at the quai des Belges, where an 80 meter finger has been especially constructed for the occasion.

Click here to read more on the finish in Marseille

Club Med, 'the Untouchables' - Soon in the Mediterranean
Club Med is approaching the Straits of Gibraltar and is 100 miles from Tarifa, Spain (there is 700 miles between trifa and Marseille). They are sailing along the Moroccan coastline in 20 knots of south-west breeze.

They will reach the gate to the Mediterranean in less than 5 hours, the narrow strip of water that separates North Africa and Europe and leave the Atlantic behind. The Gibraltar Straits will not be straightforward.

Dalton: "The wind came through eventually yesterday afternoon, and it has been building ever since. We have 25-30 knots from the South West at the moment, we are really smoking. We are averaging 24 knots straight at the mark."

The low has moved over the Western Approaches, there's another one behind it and the result is solid west or south-westerly breeze all the way from the mid-Atlantic to Marseille.

"There will be wind in the Med after we have passed Gib but right now we are only concentrating on the Straits. We know that there will be a lot of wind through there tonight and a nasty short sea, so we have to be really careful. We'll be there at midnight local time so it will be dark, there will be, by definition, a lot of shipping and it will be gusty. The Med will come later and we'll deal with it when we get there."

Dalton on when they arrive: "When I set foot on land, the first thing I want is a hamburger, Coke and fries, and then we’ll adjourn to a bar and probably fall under a table. My mother and my family and are coming in to greet me."

Innovation Explorer, 'the Hunters'
They have caught the tail of the same low as Club Med, they were trapped in the ridge much longer than anticipated as the low did not come south. They took a run north to ensure getting into the low.

Elena Caputo: "As a big swell rolled in from the Northwest we started to be concerned with the gennaker panting in its already fragile state. But it wasn't the material that gave way this time. The tack strop suddenly snapped and 500 square meters of sail went flying up in the air. It was a matter of seconds before the whole crew was on deck. The "big guys" held the sail by the furling line while Skip at the helm headed down wind and everybody else pulled in the genn as it was being dropped onto the net. Julien and Loic Le Mignon replaced the spectra strop on the bow and we rehoisted the sail. The whole manouver took about 20 minutes and maybe it was lucky the wind hadn't started blowing hard. A couple of more repairs were made on the reacher, but that has become part of the daily routine, and another padeye was replaced on the aft beam since it was on the verge of snapping."

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

Team Adventure, Entertainment Extreme - passes Cape Horn
Team Adventure rounded Cape Horn about 11:00 PM GMT last night, the 28th February, 2001, celebrated by the seven Frenchmen on board in the traditional manner of cassoulet and a bottle of red wine. They are now heading towards the Falklands.

Lewis: "A few gusts of 60 knots, and with 50 knots we can still set some sail. The sea has always been well organised, easy to cope with at the helm. The boat is sound. All the berths are nice and dry. Everybody is chipping in with manoeuvres."

Those Fabulous Poles - 135 miles from Cape Horn
The low right will be right over Cape Horn tonight and Friday morning, creating potentially horrendous easterly upwind conditions in the shallow Drake Passage. It's a race against time and the elements for Warta Polpharma to try and get round before the low forms over the top of them. Currently they are hugging the Chilean coastline. They have covered 430 miles in 24 hours at an average speed of 17.8 knots.

Dariusz Drapella, navigator: It's all hands on deck here. We want to avoid confronting a big storm at the Horn with the wind on the nose. The crew is tired and there is damp everywhere, but we're going to have to drive the boat flat out. It's a race against the clock. We're carrying all the sail that the 25-to-35 knot westerly will allow us. Friday will be our worst day! But with our two months of sailing we're more experienced. In 25 to 30 knots, we can still hoist some canvas and play with the swell. We need to hold 20 knots average to get through. Maybe we ought to head south a bit, if the sea really gets nasty. We're not going to take the risk of being washed up onto the coast."

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

Team Legato - 'the Survivor's' - hunting for wind
Paul Larson, watch leader: "To call our current predicament frustrating would be quite an understatement. What I see laid out all around me is no one picture of the Southern Ocean.It is dead flat with no wind, bordering on what I call glasshouse conditions. We are told by three independent sources there are strong winds all around us, yet we have sat here for a day and a half making little progress or direction. After trying to eke out three to four knots of boat speed for two days, it is nice to see the Speedo climbing above 20 knots once more."

Bullimore has maintained an impressively positive mindset throughout his troubled voyage, despite the myriad of problems he has faced, the newest one being the lack of navigational aids.

Bullimore: "We’re getting text, we’re not getting any models, so it’s very difficult trying to imagine what the weather router is trying to get us to do. We can’t look at isobars."

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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