Just one year ago, on March 3rd 2001 in Marseilles, the maxi-catamaran Club Med crossed the finishing line to win the first edition of The Race, after 62 days, 6
hours, 56 minutes and 33 seconds of extraordinary sailing. 27,408 miles (or 50,760 km) devoured at the astonishing average of 18.3 knots... never seen before! On
board, 13 members of crew, skilled, solid and complementary... recruited from the highest international ranks and representing no fewer than six different nations; a
fitting way to see Bruno Peyron's wish come true of bringing together Latin and Anglo-Saxon cultures to serve innovation and performance. In command of the blue
giant, New Zealander Grant Dalton, today in the throws of finishing his seventh circumnavigation at the helm of Amer Sports One, currently second in the Volvo
Ocean Race. 'It's always the people who make the difference, and we had the right people' stated the skipper shortly after crossing the finishing line on March 3rd
2001 at 20 hours, 56 minutes and 33 seconds.
Where are they now?
The incredible sum of competence brought together aboard the winner of The Race was, according to the skipper, the key to the 'the greatest race in my career as a
yachtsman'...
A year later, each one of the actors of this great adventure can once again be found in the thick of the most demanding races, starting with the French contingent, led
at the time by co-skipper Franck Proffit, one of the world's greatest ocean racing multihull specialists, shortly to be teaming up with Franck Cammas for the 2002
edition of the 9 Télécom Multihull Championship. Hervé Jan, an untiring globe girdler, current holder of the Jules Verne Trophy, is once again, with Bruno Peyron
this time, in pursuit of a new reference time on the former Innovation Explorer, renamed Orange. Fred le Peutrec, now skipper of the brand new trimaran Bayer, will
be joining forces with his old Club Med crew mates, Alexis de Cénival and Nicolas Pichelin, also involved, by the way, in the next America's Cup.
As for Jacques Caraës, he's lending a hand to Jean Le Cam (skipper of the trimaran Bonduelle), as co-ordinator up until the start of the next Route du Rhum, whilst
working at the same time on his Vendée Globe 2004 project.
As for what Grant called 'The Three Man Army', capable of fixing anything, they are also pursuing exemplary careers as can be testified by the presence of Jan
Dekker (dual nationality: French and South African) aboard Tyco and Neal MacDonald in command of Assa Abloy, two syndicates entered in the Volvo Ocean
Race, not forgetting New Zealander Ed Danby, in charge of the GBR Challenge shore team, the new British America's Cup challenge. He should soon be crossing
paths with his compatriot Mike Quilter involved in the preparation of the new Team New Zealand...
And the other two Latins on board? The Spaniard Guillermo Altadill and the Italian Stephano Rizzi are both battling in that vast round the world regatta, the
ex-Whitbread, Guillermo on board Assa Abloy alongside Neal MacDonald and the Stephano alongside Grant Dalton on board Amer Sports One.
Exceptional individual careers that one year further down the track vouch for the quality of a team assembled to win, beyond the divide between languages and
maritime cultures.
By inaugurating the era of giant ocean racing multihulls, these men have written the first lines of a history whose next great chapters will enthral us with the coming
record attempts along the greatest ocean course on the planet, right up until the start of the next edition of The Race, in February 2004.
-copy-NewAdFeb1WeekA1.jpg)
