The Race : the first nonstop, round-the-world, no-holds-barred sailing competition by Zimmermann Tim

Author:Zimmermann, Tim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sailboat racing, Sailboat racing, Voyages around the world, Sailboat racing, Catamarans
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co.
Published: 2002-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

away with the on-deck stereo speakers blaring "Who Let the Dogs Out." The last of the maxi-cats, Explorer, presently slipped her lines, bringing up the rear.

Only Team Legato stayed firmly moored to the dock, while Tony Bullimore wrestled with finalizing a crew and provisioning the boat. The race committee was also insisting that he complete some additional safety prerequisites, such as painting her rudders and daggerboards — which extended down from the hull and helped keep the boat tracking in a straight line — fluorescent orange. That way they would be more visible from the air if Team Legato flipped. They also wanted Legato to sail 150 more qualification miles. All boats were required to have sailed 2,500 miles, which she'd been unable to complete in the scramble to get to Barcelona on time. The exasperated Bullimore joked that if the current off Barcelona was strong enough, he would simply anchor outside the harbor and let the rush of water past his boat rack up the needed miles on his log. Ultimately, he would start twenty hours late and more than 200 miles behind the leaders. In such a long race that was not necessarily a death sentence. In any case, Team Legators only real chance of doing well in The Race depended on her larger, newer rivals' suffering breakdowns.

Out at the starting area, hundreds of spectator boats and seven hovering helicopters created a frenzied scene. A Goodyear blimp floated serenely above the bustling tableau, recording it with the omniscient eye of its television camera and broadcasting it live in France and Spain. Round-the-world yacht racing had come a long way since the amateur competitors in the Golden Globe slipped quietly to sea, observed by just a few boats carrying relatives, friends, and interested journalists.

Just beneath the glossy veneer of modern sport — the media center, the sponsorship tents, the publicity blitz — there remained a mild undercurrent of disbelief that The Race, so long in the making, was actually about to come off, that six crews were embarking on a nonstop circumnavigation in giant catamarans. Steve Fossett, ever the oddsmaker, had always harbored

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