Day 72 - Team Adventure Passed the Equator at 11 AM GMT. Warta Polpharma Heading North, 1500 miles behind Team Adventure. Team Legato passed the Falkland Islands.
News - Monday, 03/12/2001, 10:00 PM GMT

Position	03/12/2001 10:00 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 (3067 nm from finish. Crossed Equator at 11:00 GMT, avg speed 22.2 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (4671 nm from the finish. 1604 nm from TA, lost another 100 miles, avg speed 7.6 knots)
5th	Team Legato (6517 nm from the finish. 3450 from TA. South of Falklands, avg speed 16.5 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

Team Adventure projected finish:

• Sun. March 11th: ETA around March 22nd
• Wed. March 7th: ETA around March 18th
• Thur. March 1st: ETA around March 21st

Team Adventure, Entertainment Extreme - passed the equator at 11 AM GMT
They have covered 600 miles in the past 24 hours, and will likely not be slowed down by the doldrums. They'll head straight into the northeast trade winds.

Lewis: The pace has picked up a bit, and for another 24 hours, we expect good winds, after which there will be some slower sailing from around three degrees South to three degrees North. Then we will be getting into the northeast trades and have to sail fast upwind for a while. It is still a heck of a long way to Marseille."

"The interior of the leeward hull is a bit warm. We cannot open the cockpit hatch because it's too wet. The 'dorade' air scoop aft was taken off by a huge wave in the Indian Ocean and we need to charge the batteries with the leeward engine. All of this combines to make living conditions a bit on the warm side."

"The other problem with the leeward hull is the fairing on the engine exhaust is a really bad shape."

"It is just above the waterline and the water action on it causes horrific turbulence right next to my bunk. This is something to fix right away as it creates drag in the water, to say nothing of making it harder to sleep."

There was some discussion today about Team Adventure going after Club Med's record of distance covered in 24 hours, this link lists the records broken in this race.
Records.

Warta Polpharma projected finish:

• Sun. March 11th: ETA around March 25th
• Fri. March 9th: ETA around March 23rd

Those Fabulous Poles - now 1500 miles behind Team Adventure
Warta Polpharma is now heading north in a north-east breeze of 14/15 knots. They have not yet reached the trades.

They had to shift more than 500 miles east to rejoin the normal route and more importantly to pick up the northeasterly winds that will allow them to sail directly north towards the equator. First they will pick up the northeasterly airflow and eventually a 15 knot easterly wind that in combination will take them to the equator.

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' - passed the Falkland Islands to the west
Team Legato is expected to slow down soon with the approach of a large area of high pressure at the bottom end of Argentina causing the winds to veer from west-northwest to south-southwest.

They were successful in exceeding their required minimum distance of 320 miles in the last 24 hours - 438 miles.

The support boat Watcher (formerly Merit Cup) has also rounded Cape Horn and is making her way up to Mar del Plata (Argentina) where she will end her voyage.

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

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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