Winds Abort Bid to Sail Across Atlantic

Adventurer Steve Fossett abandoned his quest to break the transatlantic sailing record a mere eight hours into the journey after a gust of wind disabled the sail and nearly sank his 105-foot catamaran.

The double-hull vessel PlayStation limped into Newport on Friday. It had set out Thursday afternoon from New York.

“We were sailing too close to the limits of the boat and didn’t leave enough margin for error,” the 55-year-old Chicago millionaire said. “We’ve been taught a lesson.”

The adventurer and his nine-man crew were attempting to cross the ocean in less than six days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 32 seconds--the record set in 1990 by Frenchman Serge Madec. The trip to Cornwall, England, is 2,888 miles.

Fossett had waited for weeks for good weather.

On Thursday night, the battens in the vessel’s mainsail snapped in 71 mph gusts. The boat’s nose dived into the water and the craft almost flipped, Fossett said. The battens, which are needed to keep the sail taut, couldn’t be repaired because there weren’t enough extra ones aboard.

Fossett credited Gino Morelli, an American crewman, with preventing a harrowing moment from becoming a tragedy.

“I was glad I had a very good helmsman on watch at that time, because if it were not handled properly we would have gone over,” he said.

The boat, made of Space Age carbon fiber and designed specifically to break speed records, will be repaired, and Fossett said he will make another transatlantic attempt in the spring. Fossett had planned to try to set the round-the-world speed record in February but said those plans have now been postponed.

The former commodities trader already holds other sailing records and has made numerous attempts to travel around the world in a balloon. Last year, Fossett and billionaire Richard Branson had to ditch their balloon into the sea off Hawaii on Christmas Day during a round-the-world quest.

Branson, the chairman of Virgin Group, had been invited to join this week’s PlayStation journey but withdrew at the last minute.