Jules Verne Death Match Update–Another Contender Ready at Ringside: Steve Fossett’s “Cheyenne” has finally tucked into the steady trade winds and is rocketing south toward the Equator. The 125-foot maxi cat is about a day and a half off the record pace, and Fossett and his team will hope to make some of that up passing through the windless Doldrums, and then later in the Southern Ocean, where Orange had some slow days. In any case, “Cheyenne” is lucky to still have a mast. Watch captain David Scully describes the action yesterday:

“The sun rose on the sparkling sea this morning, to reveal that our rig was about to fall down. Guillermo Altadill, walking forward after his trick on the helm, happened to look up, and noticed that the large pin securing a link plate in the shrouds, had wandered part of the way out of it’s mounting. Pausing briefly for a few Hail Mary’s, we jibed, took a hammer to it, and restored our rigging to it’s normal integrity. At some time, probably during our fifty knot upwind slog to the start, the split pin securing the big rigging pin in place had sheared, and the big pin had been slowly leaving the boat ever since. Had we jibed and unloaded the pin, our return jibe might have been made memorable by the graceful descent of the rig and sailplan. Thanks to the sharp eyed Catalan, we are not, at this writing, paddling to the Canaries.

Sailing today is pleasant, but not very fast. We are sailing downwind angles, jibing on shifts. The wind has picked up some this morning, but the pace is still a bit docile. Adrienne [navigator] assures that we are sailing into more wind, and we hope she is right. No accurate position fix on OdK. We expect that he is totally becalmed somewhere around Madeira, wishing he had taken up accountancy in his youth, rather than sailing.”

Scully is a great sailor with a dry sense of humor, but unfortunately for “Cheyenne” Olivier De K is very happy to be a sailor at the moment, because “Geronimo” has made much better time than “Cheyenne” in the early going and is less than a day behind, chasing hard. Some figures: after 5 days “Cheyenne” has sailed 1682 miles. De K has done 1224 in just 3 days (at Day 3 “Cheyenne” had done just under 1000). This is good for “Cheyenne” because it will keep them pushing a full speed to stay ahead. At the same time, it will be stressful to have another boat so close. Imagine getting all the way around the world, breaking the record, and then having another boat break it again just a day later. D’oh. Worse, this problem is about to get worse for both Fossett and De K. Bruno Peyron, the French sailor who basically invented this class of giant multihulls, has just launched and christened the latest generation version of these sailing beasts, a 120-foot catamaran, sponsored by French telecoms giant “Orange.” Peyron and his crew of 13 have barely sailed the thing, but they are about to go on standby to take up the chase. If we get three maxi-multihulls out on the track at the same time, this Jules Verne Death Match is going to get extreme. In fact, there is a possibility that the world record will be broken three times in a couple of weeks…



Next in the Start Grid: “Orange” should be the fastest ocean racer on the planet, if Bruno Peyron can keep his spanking new cat from teething problems…