Day 68 - Team Adventure Satcom B repaired. Warta Polpharma Making Poland Proud. Team Legato Racing a Storm and the Clock.
News - Thursday, 03/08/2001, 8:34 PM GMT

Position	03/08/2001 8:34 PM GMT
1st	Club Med (WINNER OF THE RACE Elapsed Time: 62d 6h 56m Approx. Ave Speed:18 knots)
2nd	Innovation Explorer (FINISHED 2ND AT 11:35:38 GMT 03/06/2001 - 64 d 22 h 32 m 38 s Approx. Ave. Speed: 18.45 knots)
3rd	Team Adventure (4654 nm from finish. Repaired Satcom B successfully, avg speed 10.9 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (5308 nm from the finish. 654 nm from TA. Gained another 70 miles on Team Adventure, avg speed 13.5 knots)
5th	Team Legato (8010 nm from the finish. 3356 from TA. Racing a storm and the clock, 2.5 days to Cape Horn, avg speed 16.2 knots)
6th	PlayStation DNF

cat-alist Estimated arrival dates and Positions
1st	Club Med	Saturday, March 3rd - 7:56:33 PM GMT
2nd	Innovation Explorer	Tuesday, March 6th - 11:35:38 AM GMT
3rd	Team Adventure	around March 18th
4th	Warta Polpharma	around March 23rd
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. Innovation Explorer Med is docked 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

Innovation Explorer, 'the Hunters' - thrilled with the boat
Skip Novak on Innovation Explorer: "Even at 60 knots and in pretty big seas, we felt we were in control of the boat. But I'll admit at one point I was steering the whole show in a Southern Ocean squall, and I just did not know what was going to happen next," he says.

"For a moment there I was not in control. When you have the lives of 11 people in your hands, that is a pretty serious implication. More than 60 knots or a rogue wave can mean a catastrophe. So safety on these boats remains a bit of a wild card."

Innovation Explorer projected list of boat damage:

• the daggerboard: news, they hit some wood;
• The sails: ripped gennaker, patchwork reacher.
• Lost: another half of a security port that was situated under the central crossbeam.
• broken: one of the plexiglass shields that protects the companionway into one of the hulls.

Club Med boat damage:

Franck Proffit, co-skipper: "Just three days from Marseilles, because of a lower shroud failure, we nearly lost the rig. Just near the terminal where the Kevlar shroud joins the mast a lot of extra wear had taken place, we added extra lashing and connections to keep it together to the finish."

Dalton: "We were fine until about 5000 miles from the finish, which is 75% of the distance around the world, when we suffered some nasty structural core shear, or delamination under one of our beams, exactly where the front beam joins the starboard hull."

"The core between skins disintegrated over a patch of about 2 square metres in area in a really important structural part of the boat. The Three Man Army took the watertight bulkhead doors from inside and bolted them on to the inside and the outside of the suspect area. We had to steal parts from other areas in the boat, for example the bolts we used we 'borrowed' from the base of each winch, we took two from each winch, and we took a few from the generator."

• damage to the rope-rigging attachments.
• Extensive damage to the front crossbeam where it joins the hull. This occurred off of Cape Horn. Some delamination occured. They spend a day and a half attaching the two layers of carbon by doing makeshift bolting.
• Delamination around one of the crossbeam roots, where it supports the mast.
• The hulls' core material had collapsed, leading to serious localised weakening - They bolted bulkhead doors to the inside of the hulls. Three patches were added to the port hull and two to the starboard.
• Damage to the trampolines between the hulls.
• problem with the lower shroud - a metal gin-block snapped, a piece made of aluminium which was made in the USA. It may have been a problem with the metal, or a production fault, they are not sure yet.
• Padeyes anchoring huge loads from the sail plan broke under much less load than they should have.

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

Team Adventure projected finish:

• Wed. March 7th: ETA around March 18th
• Thur. March 1st: ETA around March 21st

Team Adventure, Entertainment Extreme - Satcom B repaired
Team Adventure are on a starboard tack in a northeast wind, enjoying the sunshine, east of the Brazilian coast. They have repaired their France Telecom SAT B and can communicate again. They are 3 days (1450 miles) from the equator.

Those Fabulous Poles - Making Poland Proud, happy to be here!
Warta Polpharma is heading north into the twenties, 270 miles off the coast of Brazil in favourable conditions. They are 4 or 5 days from the equator.

Drapella, on the support from Poland: "Many hearts are sailing with us. We are touched by their support. It is a national event and we are proud to be the only ‘national’ team taking part in The Race."

One of the most popular Polish television stations begins every edition of the news with an update of the crew’s progress.

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 Watcher is the dotted yellow line PlayStation is in orange-red

Team Legato - 'the Survivor's' - two and a half days to Cape Horn
Team Legato must round Cape Horn before it is caught by a vicious low-pressure system sweeping towards them from New Zealand. They are currently in 25 to 30 knot winds from the south in confused seas. They have covered nearly 400 miles in the last 24 hours.

The low system could catch up with them at The Horn, if they become ensnared and slowed by the high pressure currently chasing them eastwards. If Team Legato can stay ahead of the weather rounding Cape Horn, they should be 1,500 miles north of the storm as it rolls by harmlessly.

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