Long legs and strong wings

Super sailor Cam Lewis shares his experiences aboard two of the great record runs in modern sailing. BY MICHAEL LEVITT

In the last two years, four prominent world distance-sailing records have fallen in dramatic fashion: around the world in 79 days by Commodore Explorer in 1993; reduced to 74 days by ENZA New Zealand in 1994; a Two-Handed Transatlantic record of 9 days and 8 hours by Primagaz in 1994, and the Singlehanded Transatlantic record of 7 days and 2 hours, also set by Primagaz this year. The latter passage, set by Laurent Bourgnon sailing singlehanded, included a 24-hour run of 538.7 nautical miles at an incredible average speed of 22.44 knots. No boat, be it fully crewed or solo, has ever sailed farther in 24 hours.

A prominent figure in this flurry of records is Cam Lewis: the 1993 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year in America. Lewis, of Lincolnville, Maine, was aboard for Commodore Explorer's 79-day circumnavigation and for the Two-Handed Transatlantic Record set aboard Primagaz. Besides unlimited multihulls, Lewis raced in the America's Cup in '88 with Dennis Conner, won the Finn Gold Cup twice in '79 and '80 and won 505 World Championships in '81 and '82. We talked with Lewis about his experiences aboard Commodore and Primagaz and his impressions of the North sails on these boats.

Primagaz(left) and Commodore Explorer(below) set their records using North Gatorback Spectra/Dyneema working inventories. Spectra/Dyneema was chosen over Kevlar for its improved resistance to flex and UV combined with light weight and relatively low stretch.

In search of Phileas Fogg. The 86-ft. (26 m.) x 45-ft. (14 m.) catamaran Commodore Explorer left Ouessant, France, on January 31, 1993, for the start of the Trophee Jules Verne Race...non-stop around the world. Competitors were out to break the fictitious record of Phileas Fogg in the 1873 Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days. "To beat the 80-day target, we figured we'd have to sail 27,000 nautical miles at an average 14 knots, or about 338 nautical miles a day," says Lewis. "That's a hard day's drive in your car."

Leaving six hours earlier was ENZA New Zealand a similar-sized catamaran skippered by New Zealand's Whitbread hero Peter Blake and Englishman Robin Knox Johnston, the first person to sail solo nonstop around the world. A third boat, the trimaran Charal, skippered by Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson, was an unofficial entry that left nine days earlier.

By February 16, Charal was gone. "They hit something," Lewis said. "Perhaps a growler—a piece of an iceberg. It ripped the starboard hull some 26 feet." On February 26, ENZA suffered a similar fate.

Commodore charged on, averaging 16 knots for two-thirds of the voyage, or up to Cape Horn. "There, a private hurricane nearly ended our voyage," says Lewis. "As the wind built, we dropped all our sails but we were still hurdling through space at 25 knots. We hove-to for 24 hours in 82 knots of wind. As far as I know, this has never been done on a multihull of this size. Imagine turning a floating tennis court with a wing mast that sticks 110 feet into the sky into hurricane-force winds and forty-foot-plus seas. It's amazing the boat didn't blow over." Battered but not broken, Commodore pressed Northward.

We hove-to for 24 hours in 82 knots of wind. As far as I know, this has never been done on a multihull of this size.

"After you cross the equator, the winds blow from the northeast," explained Cam. "This promised headwinds, so Bruno opted to go northwest to avoid them. On this move, he bet the voyage. We didn't turn right for France until we hit the Gulf Stream and the wind went west. At that point, the clock was ticking so loudly it hurt my ears!" On April 15, they were in the westerlies. "We did 480 miles that day. The next day we did 507—our best to date! Aurevoir, Phileas Fogg."

On April 20, the circumnavigation ended where it began. Commodore Explorer had sailed around the world in 79 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes, and 56 seconds, for an average speed of 14.7 knots, or 353 nautical miles a day. She smashed the previous record of of 109 days, 8 hours, and 48 minutes set by Titouan Lamazou in the monohull, Ecureuil d'Aquitaine II.

Commodore Explorer, the former (and lengthened) transatlantic recordholder Jet Services V, carried North Gatorback™ Spectra/Dyneema sails on a towering wing mast of 105 feet (32 m.). Her FullBatten mainsail was 3,239 sq. ft. (221 m2). She carried a reacher of 2,005 sq.ft. (185 m), also made of Gatorback Spectra; a fully battened staysail, and a Solent (100%), jib. None of the working sails were roller-furling to save weight.

In 27,000 miles of sailing Commodore completed a total of 568 tacks, jibes, reefs, and sail-changes—a lifetime of use in some of the most rigorous conditions on earth. Lewis's opinion of the North sails on Commodore Explorer? "The sails far surpassed our hopes in terms of longevity, wear, and shape-holding. Marc Vallin, our onboard sailmaker, looked them over afterwards and with some minor touch-ups, we could have gone around again. We had so much confidence in the sails, we took no backups and no sewing machine."

Second time around. A year later, Commodore's record was eclipsed by a newly lengthened 92-ft. ENZA New Zealand. Her time was 74 days, 22 hours, and 17 minutes. That's an average speed of 15 knots or 360 miles a day. The catamaran relied on four sails built by North: a fully battened North Gatorback Spectra/ Dyneema mainsail of 2,545 sq. ft. (235 m2); a Gatorback Spectra/ Dyneema jib-top reacher of 1,321 sq.ft.(122 m2); and two nylon asymmetric spinnakers.

This summer Lewis joined Laurent Bourgnon on the 60 ft. trimaran Primagaz for the Plymouth Development Corporation's Two-handed Transatlantic Race. The race started in Plymouth, England, on June 5. "An east-to-west transatlantic passage is primarily an upwind race into the prevailing westerlies and into the Gulf Stream," says Lewis. Primagaz leapt to an early lead, but halfway across the Atlantic Lewis picked up another boat on the radar. It was Loick Peyron's Fujicolor, also with North sails. Peyron, the brother of Bruno Peyron, Lewis's skipper on Commodore Explorer. "I turned on our lights to say, 'Hello!'"

The shortest route in the race is north. Fuji went this way, while Laurent and Lewis headed south to avoid the cold and having to beat into Newport at the finish. "By going south we enjoyed tropical winds and lumps in the Gulf Stream. Meanwhile Loick was dodging icebergs. "

When they converged at the finish Pnimagaz led Fujicolor by a scant 80 minutes and smashed the double-handed-transatlantic record by more than 38 hours. She sailed the 2,800mile course in 9 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes, averaging 12.5 knots.

Pnimagaz carried a North Gatorback Spectra/Dyneema working inventory plus two free-flying asymmetric spinnakers also made of Spectra/Dyneema. "If anyone logged 3,000 miles on an America's Cup mainsail, they'd throw it out," Lewis comments. "We raced and trained with these sails before the race, then sailed across the ocean, then Bourgnon sailed them back across, and you saw what he did."

What Laurent Bourgnon "did" was obliterate Bruno Peyron's '92 solo transatlantic record by more than 2 days and 16 hours. Przimagaz also sailed a world-record 538.7 nautical miles in a 24-hour period. Try doing that in your car.

Michael Levitt is communications director of North Sails. His next book, Around the World in Seventy-Nine Days, co-authored with Cam Lewis will be published this spring by Dell.