Team Adventure departs NY on transatlantic record attempt

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

After waiting all morning for the breeze to fill in, Team Adventure blasted across the start line at the Ambrose Light Tower, which guards the entrance to New York Harbor, at 3:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

While Manhattan baked in a heat wave, Team Adventure flew her starboard hull like a monster beach cat and zoomed across the line and up the coast of Long Island at speeds up to 30 knots, powered by 25 knot cooling breezes from the south-west. Under ideal conditions, the big boat is capable of sailing almost twice as fast as the wind.

Team Adventure is being campaigned by two skippers. Team Adventure CEO and skipper Cam Lewis, from Lincolnville, Maine, has been joined by his Swiss/French friend and co-skipper Laurent Bourgnon. They are sailing with an international crew of 15, including Larry Rosenfeld, the navigator and Lewis' partner in Team Adventure.

The boat is flying the Monster.com colors and displaying Trumpasaurus, Monster.com's signature mascot on its biggest sail, the Monster gennaker. The giant catamaran recently finished third in the Race of the Millennium, a non-stop race around the world.

"Our American and French weather forecasters both tell us that conditions are favorable for a record run," Lewis said today. "We'll have light winds leaving New York but expect to quickly sail into strong following winds and seas, mostly from the south-west. Late on Friday night we expect the winds to build to 35 to 40 knots with seas as big as 15 feet but the boat has already proved her speed and seaworthiness in these conditions."

The nearly 3,000-mile course for the record stretches from the Ambrose Light Tower, to The Lizard Lighthouse, which marks the western end of the English Channel. The direct route takes the boat up the eastern seaboard of the United States, through the dense fogs of the Grand Banks and the gales of the open Atlantic.

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 when they sped across the Atlantic on Bourgnon's 60-foot trimaran Foncia Immoblier. They rode several powerful weather systems and sailed 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.

Commanders' Weather, a shore-based weather forecasting and routing service based in Nashua, New Hampshire is providing weather services, along with French meteorologist Richard Silvani. Both gave the green light for the attempt.

"The weather models have been consistent for several days now," said George Caras of Commanders'. "We are showing strong winds all the way across and we're advising the boat to stay a little south of the shortest course to avoid the strongest winds and biggest waves."

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.

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