PlayStation ahead of Transatlantic record

by Stan Honey & P100 Sports on 9 Oct 2001 64hr 40min 43sec after leaving New York
1675.03 nm total Great Circle distance covered
1181+ nm total Great Circle distance to The Lizard

Still averaging speeds of over 25 knots, American skipper Steve Fossett's
maxi-catamaran PlayStation and her 10 man crew remain strongly ahead of
schedule to break the 11 year old TransAtlantic sailing record held by Serge
Madec on Jet Services 5 (6d 13h 3m 32s). This (Monday) morning, 64 hours
into the attempt, they were some 400 nm ahead of Madec's pace, with
approximately 1180 nm to sail to the finish line at The Lizard, UK and
promising weather conditions ahead.

Additionally, a new 24 Hour Sailing Record was set Sunday afternoon,
recapturing the traditional, 'bragging rights' first claimed by Fossett and
PlayStation in March 1999 and currently held by Grant Dalton's Club Med in
2000/2001.

Steve Fossett: 'Our focus for the past 2 days has been on making progress on
this TransAt - but getting the 24 Hour Record back from Grant is pretty nice,
too. PlayStation is once again the fastest sailboat in the world.'

At 687.17 nm, PlayStation's 24 Hour run from 22.00 GMT 6 October - 22.00 GMT
7 October sets (pending ratification by the WSSRC) a new world record.
(Dalton and crew set the current record in the Southern Ocean at 655.13nm on
7/8 Feb 2001 during The RACE.)

In an email to Mission Control this morning, navigator Stan Honey described
weather conditions:

'We're finally out of the Labrador current, so the boat has warmed back up
and the fog has lifted. So far we are staying ahead of our gale/cold front.
It is intensifying, but it has slowed down a bit. Often when boats adopt the
weather strategy that we are using (trying to cross the Atlantic preceding a
cold front) the front goes stationary just before the English Channel, and a
potentially good passage goes to rot right at the end in light air.'

'This could of course still happen to us, but the pattern looks pretty good
(i.e. just progressive enough) so that we might carry our breeze to the
English Channel.'

'Saturday, when we passed Sable Island, we went close to two oil platforms.
Both platforms warned us of the incoming 50 knot gale, and were surprised to
hear that we were out there precisely because of the incoming gale, although
we were not intending to stick around to see the centre of it.'

For ongoing record status/updates/information (plus background, records,
photos, and press release archive) please see www.fossettchallenge.com