Yachting: Catamaran's design saved crew from storm: skipper

English skipper Pete Goss refuses to curse the radical round-the-world catamaran he had to abandon in storm-tossed seas - instead he is thanking it for saving the crew.

Back on land yesterday after being rescued by a ship in the North Atlantic, Goss praised the 38m boat's design.

"I have never seen a storm like this before," Goss said.

"Team Philips is the only reason that we made it through the storm. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been here, for sure."

The boat has been heavily criticised for the structural problems which plagued it since it was launched in March for the non-stop circumnavigation contest, The Race, which starts in a fortnight.

Goss was adamant that the revolutionary hulls, designed by Adrian Thompson to slice through waves, kept the seven-man crew safe.

"It was the equivalent of a full-on Southern Ocean storm. We were in it for eight hours with huge, huge seas like blocks of flats rolling through," Goss said.

The crew arrived uninjured in Halifax, Canada, on board German container ship the Hoechst Express, which answered their mayday call on Sunday night (NZ time).

The catamaran, which cost around $14 million, is still floating somewhere off the coast of Ireland. Goss said the central pod of the boat, from where it is steered, was almost crushed by battering waves.

When the crew became concerned that they could not control the boat and with a second storm on the horizon, Goss sent out a mayday.

The boat was further damaged during the rescue, as it collided with the container ship. As is tradition among sea captains, Goss was the last man to leave his boat.

"She was so close that the crew were able to say a final farewell to her from the first deck. We even managed to stroke her mast as she slipped away," said crewman Andy Hindley.

Goss, who flew back home to England last night, would not be drawn on the future of Team Philips.

"I need to get back and get stuck in with the team. We need to find out where she is. It's not over by any means," he said.

In the meantime, the six boats still planning to start The Race on New Year's Eve are all at sea making their way to the startline in Barcelona.

New Zealand skipper Grant Dalton is driving his cata maran, Club Med, in an organised matchrace with sister yacht Innovation Explorer on the delivery voyage along the Mediterranean coast from Monaco to Spain.