Trimaran Ahead of Record Around Cape Horn

Great American, the last of five sailboats to leave New York in the Cape Horn Challenge race against time to San Francisco, was reported 300 miles past the turning point Friday and 2 days 7 hours ahead of the record.

The 60-foot trimaran, with skipper Georgs Kolesnikovs and Steve Pettengill aboard, is chasing the record of 80 days, 20 hours set in mid-February by Warren Luhrs’ 60-foot monohull Thursday’s Child, which beat the 135-year-old record of 89 days 8 hours by the clipper ship Flying Cloud.

Kolesnikovs and Pettengill are the only competitors remaining. To beat Thursday Child’s record, they must pass Pier 39 in San Francisco Bay by 6 a.m. May 31.

Dan Dickison of Sailing World Magazine, who is monitoring the event from Newport, R.I., said, “The next week and a half to two weeks will be a critical time. If they can get by the first light air off the Chilean coast, they’ll be doing OK. They’ll look very solid for the record.”

Asked if a record by Great American might stir a monohull-multihull dispute, as it has in the America’s Cup, Dickison said, “I’m sure it’ll be brought up.”

Of the other three entries, French single-hander Phillippe Monnet, sailing a trimaran, finished 8 hours 4 minutes behind Thursday’s Child’s time.

Anne Liardet of France, with fiance Joseph Le Guen, reached San Francisco on a trimaran in 99 days, arriving simultaneously with reports that unpaid creditors had seized her possessions in France.