The Race: Grant Dalton and Club Med are in

Code Zero now has an actual idenity rather than the cryptic title we have know the project by.  Code Zero will sail The Race as Club Med with a crew led by New Zealander Grand Dalton.

Dalton has sailed around the world 5 times competing in the Whitrbrad Around the World Race.  Twice, in 1981-82 and 1993-94 Dalton was on the winning boat.

The 109 foot Club Med will be a catamaran 109 feet in length.  Beam will be 25' 6", with 13' 1" draft.  The mast will be 136' high.  Length of the boom: 47'.  Displacement is expected to be 44,000 LBS.

Upwind Club Med will carry 6566 square feet of sail.  Her main will be 3767 square feet, the genoa 2798 square feet, with a Solent Jib area of 1937 square feet.

Off the wind the area will be boosted to 8611 square feet.  Club Med will fly a 4844 square foot gennaker.

Dalton will lead what is expected to be a 14 man crew.  He will look to areas such as France where large multi hull experience is plentiful to fill out the crew.   Mike Quilter will serve as navigator. 

Dalton's sailing background in is large monohulls.  Dalton feels this can be overcome by putting together an experienced team.  He says he will assemble the team with this philosophy in mind, "Top managers employ people more skilled than them to cover all facets of the business that they run, then manage them".

After launching in April 2000 Club Med has an ambitious sailing schedule.  Grant Dalton's describes the training program this way: "The training program and qualifications passages are still being decided but there is not a lot of point in just going out for day sails. Reliability is a key and you will only develop this by sailing across oceans so we intend doing a lot of this."  Included in this training scheme are a May or June attempt to break the Cadiz Spain to Bahamas record, a June 2000 at the Miami/New York record set this summer by Explorer and a July 2000 shot at the New York/Lizard trans atlantic record.

Below find an updated table of entries in The Race.

Playstation: No go

Due to a low pressure system Playstation has again reverted back to Code Red.  The low pressure system could have given either light winds or headwinds which are not ideal conditions for sailing speed records.

It is expected the next possible weather window will not be for 7-10 days.