By SUZANNE McFADDEN
Grant Dalton may soon regret suggesting that the non-stop round-the-world The Race sail through Cook Strait.
As Dalton's monster catamaran Club Med pounds mercilessly through the Southern Ocean, the New Zealand skipper is already worrying about what his home waters will dish up.
After powering through big seas and covering 550 miles a day, Dalton is afraid he will be becalmed in the Tasman Sea.
"I hate to sound like a merchant of doom, but the Tasman high looks particularly bad for us at the moment," Dalton said yesterday.
"We could stop and Innovation Explorer could ride the new weather system and catch us. Prophesies like this have a bad habit of coming true.
"That would be ironic when it was my idea to go through Cook Strait."
Club Med is expected to sail between the North and South Islands by the end of this week.
Although he dreads the thought of becoming becalmed, Dalton would love to take a break from the endless storms of the past fortnight.
"I spend every waking moment fearing for the boat," he said.
"It's so stressful - we're always in a big confused seaway and we are leaping clean off huge waves every couple of minutes.
"We seem to have been in a load of wind forever and I'm getting a bit sick of it. Because we go so fast we travel with the weather.
"So I'm ready for a rest in the Tasman."
So far Club Med has held together, but Dalton wishes his boat had been built a little stronger.
"I would give anything right now for another 50kg of carbon in the beams. These boats are so fragile, I only hope all the polymers are still holding hands," he said.
Yesterday, Club Med was sailing south of Australia, turning east-northeast towards New Zealand.
Dalton had a 700-mile lead over Innovation Explorer, but that could all be gone if the wind runs out in the next few days.
The French cat Innovation, sister ship to Club Med, has been sailing further south in the ocean wilds at 51 degrees.
"We could lose everything in the Tasman, which would be tragic," Dalton said.
But there are problems on board Innovation Explorer, with the crew now discussing whether to make a pitstop in Wellington on the way through the strait.
Skipper Loick Peyron is considering getting a new set of foresails sent to New Zealand, after suffering constant hiccups with the sails on board the boat.
While Club Med and Innovation Explorer are setting new personal records for speed in this race, backmarker Team Legato is setting new marks for the slowest run yet.
The British boat covered a grand total of 33 miles in 24 hours after being caught in a high-pressure system.
Team Adventure is now back on the water with just 10 crew after stopping in Cape Town for repairs. The American cat, which once led the fleet, is now 3500 miles off the pace.
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