As for the rest of the fleet, American George Stricker aboard Rapscallion II has now restarted from Cape Town after replacing his broken carbon-fiber boom. Japanese competitor Minoru Saito restarted as well after spending four hours in Cape Town to repair a faulty autopilot. Russian Feydor Kounioukov finally departed Cape Town on Tuesday after hastily finishing repairs to his 60-foot Modern University of the Humanities . The final competitor to start, Robin Davie , put to sea on Wednesday, and as of the most recent position report, trailed Autissier by 1,153 miles. Simply put, this Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin -designed cat is enormous.
Hull construction is prepreg carbon fiber with an aluminum honeycomb core.
Its mast will tower 147.5 feet over the water, its beam will extend to 60 feet, and its daggerboards to almost 15 feet. All things considered, Melvin puts the potential speed for Fossett's craft at 35 knots, and then some. It should be the fastest ocean sailing craft ever built, said Melvin. We originally looked at concepts for larger boats, but they were over our budget. So we scaled it back a bit.