Yachting: War correspondent called up for cat race

A surprise addition to a crew in The Race is no novice, writes SUZANNE McFADDEN.

Helena Caputo-Novak expected to wave farewell to her husband tomorrow as he sailed off to circumnavigate the globe in The Race. Instead, she is going with him.

Caputo-Novak will be the only woman in the inaugural non-stop giant catamaran race, sailing alongside her famous seafaring husband, Skip Novak, on board Innovation Explorer.

Six monster cats - among them Grant Dalton's Club Med - will leave Barcelona at midnight on New Year's Eve on a round-the-world journey expected to take between 65 and 70 days.

Caputo-Novak, a war correspondent for a European news organisation, was a surprise last-minute addition to the crew of the 33.5m Innovation Explorer.

She helped to deliver the boat to Barcelona this week with co-skippers Novak, a veteran of four circumnavigations, and the world's top multihull sailor, Loick Peyron.

Then Peyron asked her to stay on board.

"I'm not a professional sailor, I'm primarily a journalist," she said.

"I was really supposed to be covering the elections in Israel in a fortnight. But I'm delighted to be on board."

British-born Caputo-Novak, aged 39, is no novice. She has sailed around the world on board Commodore Explorer with Peyron's brother, Bruno, who is now organiser of The Race.

The six big boats are now sitting in Port Vell, being packed with a ton of food and diesel for the adventure.

The halfway mark is Cook Strait, which the boats are expected to reach in the first week of February.

Four of the six boats stand out as the front-runners in the fleet, in a clash which could be renamed the Hares and the Tortoises.

The "Hares" are:

Club Med: The 33.5m cat is skippered by Kiwi veteran Dalton with two other New Zealanders (Mike Quilter and Ed Danby) on board, but it flies the French flag. The boat broke the transatlantic east-west record and the 24-hour speed record on its first big outing, but has had a couple of minor mishaps, including an electrical fire last week.

PlayStation: The New Zealand-built American boat has spent more time in the water than the other major contenders, and has had its bows lengthened to 38m. Billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett has two New Zealanders in his crew, Peter Hogg and Stuart Wilson.

Team Adventure: Skippered by flamboyant former world dinghy champion Cam Lewis, the American boat is a sister ship to Club Med and Innovation Explorer. It will carry a bigger sail area than the others, so it is regarded as a "sprinter."

Innovation Explorer: The French boat co-skippered by Peyron and Novak has been in the water for only two months, but Peyron is known as the best off-shore multi-hull racer in the world.

The "Tortoises" are veterans of round-the-world sailing.

Team Legato: This boat was once known as Enza, Sir Peter Blake's catamaran that broke the Jules Verne round-the-world record. Skipper Tony Bullimore, who has lengthened it, is famous for surviving five days upside down in his capsized boat in the last single-handed Vendee Globe race, in 1996.

Warta Polphama: The all-Polish boat was formerly Commodore Explorer, the first boat to sail the globe in under 80 days. The catamaran, skippered by Roman Paszke, has also been stretched to 25m.

In the final countdown in Barcelona yesterday, Dalton predicted that Team Adventure would be the first leader as the fleet made their way past Gibraltar.

"Lewis will be the pacesetter out of here because his boat is slightly lighter than us and has more sail area," he said.

"It's going to be tough going for the first few days, with the wind expected to be about 55 knots.

"PlayStation is a little unknown in the breeze.

"But we discovered the other day that she's bullet-fast in the light. It caught me quite by surprise."

But once the fleet get to the Canary Islands, Dalton expects one boat will make a huge break.

Observers predict it will be Club Med, but Dalton does not want the favourite's tag.

"PlayStation has more miles under it, and Team Adventure is fast."