Day 69 - Few Words from the Fleet Today. Warta Polpharma and Team Legato out of Satellite Range.
News - Saturday, 03/10/2001, 3:02 PM GMT

Position	03/10/2001 3:02 AM 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 (4291 nm from finish. Slow speed in South Atlantic High, avg speed 12.5 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (5028 nm from the finish. 737 nm from TA. Sticking close to the coast, headwind, lost 80 miles to Team Adventure, avg speed 8.4 knots)
5th	Team Legato (7590 nm from the finish. 3299 from TA. Racing a storm and the clock, in 30-35 knots of wind on the way to Cape Horn, avg speed 13.3 knots)
6th	PlayStation DNF

The finish line is in the Western Mediterranean, by Marseille.
The finish line is the length of The Catalans. Innovation Explorer 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

Few words from the fleet today as Warta Polpharma and Team Legato are in a region of incommunicado out of satellite range. All three maxi-cats are making slow progress today.

Team Adventure projected finish:

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

Team Adventure, Entertainment Extreme - sail maintenance today
Team Adventure is making her way up to the equator through a classic South Atlantic high, . The crew are taking advantage of the mild conditions to do some repairs to the cuben fibre sails.

Warta Polpharma projected finish:

• Fri. March 9th: ETA around March 23rd

Those Fabulous Poles - coastline of Brasil really hurting.
Warta Polpharma has a head wind which is forcing her to stick close to the coast, which they have to avoid to move away from the bulge in the Brazilian coast which is known for flukey air, they also have to consider positioning themselves for the optimal crossing of the equator. This means following Team Adventure's line, otherwise they will get killed in the Doldrums. Right now her current situation is not very favourable.

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 projected finish:

• Fri. March 9th: ETA around March 30th

Team Legato - 'the Survivor's' - 760 miles (2 days) from Cape Horn
Team Legato, heading south, has been sailing in south, 30-35 knots of south-westerly winds heading south along the coastal waters of Chile, they are now at the western edge of a low centered on Cape Horn. Once they reach the Horn they will experience northwesterly winds forcing them to tack frequently.

They were successful in exceeding their required minimum distance of 320 miles in the last 24 hours.

What Else Can Happen?
It has been reported the crippled Russian space station Mir is due to fall to earth about 5,000 miles east of Australia, between 10 and 15 March, not too far from Team Legato.

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

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.

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