Team Adventure prepares for transatlantic sailing record

Sponsored by Monster.com, the 110-foot American catamaran Team Adventure is preparing for an attempt to break the 11-year-old record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean under sail from west to east.

The big cat is scheduled to leave her berth at the Chelsea Piers sports complex on Manhattan's West Side at 9:00 AM, tomorrow, Thursday, August 9.

Team Adventure is skippered by Cam Lewis, from Lincolnville, Maine, and his Swiss/French friend and co-skipper Laurent Bourgnon. They will sail with an international crew of 15, including Larry Rosenfeld, navigator and Lewis' partner in Team Adventure.

Carrying the Monster.com colors and Trumpasaurus, Monster.com's signature mascot, the giant catamaran recently finished third in the Race of the Millennium, a non-stop race around the world.

"Breaking the west to east record has been a goal for Laurent and me for some time now," said Lewis today. "We almost broke it two years ago aboard Laurent's 60-foot trimaran Foncia Immoblier. Team Adventure is almost twice as big and much faster and we know she's capable of peeling some time off the record whenever we get favorable weather conditions for six consecutive days."

The nearly 3,000-mile course for the record stretches from the Ambrose Light Tower, off the entrance to New York Harbor, to The Lizard Lighthouse, which marks the western end of the English Channel.

The existing mark of 6 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes, and 32 seconds was set by French skipper Serge Madec sailing the 75-foot catamaran Jet Services V in June 1990. Madec and his crew averaged 18.42 knots (34.5 kph) for the crossing.

Two years ago, Lewis and Bourgnon narrowly missed breaking the record. They blasted across the Atlantic, hooking into several powerful weather systems and sailing faster than Madec for nearly six days before they ran out of wind and were becalmed only 46 miles from the finish. Theirs was the closest of nine multihull attempts in the last 11 years to eclipse Madec's time.

A prize of 200,000 French francs ($US26,000) and a beautiful trophy has been posted by Roger Caille, former president of the French courier operation Jet Services, for any boat that breaks the record of the boat his company sponsored.

As the navigator, Rosenfeld will work with Commanders' Weather, a shore-based weather forecasting and routing service based in Nashua, New Hampshire. "We have the credentials, the boat and the crew to smash this record," Rosenfeld said today. "The only other ingredient we need is suitable weather. We don't need a lot of wind. Steady 20 knot breezes will let us maintain speeds above 25 knots, well over the 18.5-knot average speed needed to break the record."

Lewis and Bourgnon are already in the Guinness Book of World Records as holders of the east to west record. In 1994, they raced Foncia, then named Primagaz, from Plymouth, England, to Newport, R.I., in 9 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes. The record still stands. The same year, Bourgnon also set the singlehanded west to east transatlantic record aboard Primagaz, logging a time of 7 days, 2 hours, 34 minutes.

Team Adventure arrived in New York City and docked at Chelsea Piers late in the afternoon on Friday, July 13. She had sailed from the Palmer Johnson Yacht Yard in Savannah, GA, where she underwent a thorough refit, following completion of the Race of the Millennium.

In addition to Monster.com, Team Adventure's sponsors include Harken and Yale Cordage. Other sponsors are Rubson, Delta Dore, Maisons France Confort, La Manche, Poujoulat, Crealine and Look Voyages.

More Information:

• Team Adventure Website