Dalton Talks

Ed Gorman talks to Grant Dalton, the skipper of the world's quickest boat over 24 hours

Grant Dalton, the five-time Whitbread legend, believes the current generation of "maxi-cats" preparing for The Race will be superseded by even bigger boats - if and when the event is run for a second time, perhaps in 2004.

Having initially approached his 110 ft Gilles Ollier-designed catamaran Club Med with understandable trepidation earlier this year, Dalton has now sailed 7,000 miles in the machine with the bikini-clad model depicted on her bow, and has rapidly come to terms with her raw power.

In an interview with MadforSailing he reflected on how far he and his crew have come in a heady few months which included setting a new 24-hour distance record. "It's interesting," said the former skipper of Merit Cup in the last Whitbread, "when the guys first started at the beginning of May, we literally spent the first one or two days just looking at the boat and wandering around it going 'Holy shit'... then you get on and start sailing and doing your job and it just becomes a boat and it just becomes a programme.

"My feeling is that if The Race was run in three years time these boats would be 20 ft bigger," he added. "Once you get these boats under control which will happen in time, you then move on. Club Med doesn't feel big because it's very light and very easy to sail, so we feel that if you're happy with the engineering, you'd be able to build bigger already."

Dalton and his crew, which includes former Silk Cut sailors Neal McDonald and Jason Carrington and most recently Jan Dekker who has just joined the boat, set the new distance record of 625.7 miles during their first proper passage between Cadiz and San Salvador in June. But Dalton says they felt all along this was far short of Club Med's potential, a point graphically highlighted by the 60 ft trimaran Bayer, skippered by Yvan Bourgnon in the recent Quebec-St Malo race, which managed an incredible 625.34 miles in 24 hours.

"Our record has been put into perspective by Bayer," said Dalton. "None of us on board believed that 625 miles was anything special - we always felt you have to get to 650-675 pace and I think Bayer's performance has probably proved that's correct." Experience in the boat so far, has produced nothing to suggest it is not capable of these amazing distances, though the crew will be pushing Club Med close to the limits. "Design-wise the boat is something very special - it shows no bad habits and we've not had any security worries about it even for a second," added Dalton. "It'll come but I don't think at 625 - it'll be closer to 700."

There is, however, a minor black cloud on Club Med's horizon which has interrupted her programme and forced her back in the shed until the end of September - namely the loss of the crash box on the tip of the port bow during a recent aborted delivery, across the North Atlantic back to Europe. The damage is minor in comparison with what happened to Team Philips, with at most a metre of hull torn off. But Dalton is taking nothing for granted and is currently disputing the view of experts at Multiplast - the French yard where Club Med was built - that the box was torn off as a result of a collision.

The accident came about one third of the way into the trip when Club Med was fully powered up, positioned on a handy low pressure system with the crew pushing hard for best performance. Dalton himself was driving and in the preceding hour the huge multi-hull had travelled at 26-31 knots. No-one felt anything when the windward bow's crash box came off and initially they didn't even slow down.

Dalton's concern now is that the damage extends slightly further back than the sacrificial bulkhead at the aft end of the crash box. "We will apply an analytical approach to it because we'll revisit the structure forward and check it, rather than just put another piece back on which is a very simple job," he said. "I just want some study done of that area to be sure," he added.

The repair is not expected to seriously affect Club Med's build-up for The Race and Dalton remains convinced that this initial staging of the event must go ahead on schedule even if a number of the main contenders prove not to be race-ready by New Year's Eve. "The next Race in a few years time will probably turn out to be the big one, but you have to get this one out of the way for there to be a next race," he said. "So unless this one goes and is marginally successful - it may be very successful - we won't get to the next frontier."

What comes over loud and clear is that Dalton - who may yet also skipper a boat in the first Volvo Ocean Race - is still as enthusiastic as ever about racing boats offshore. "We're really enjoying our sailing," he said. "We all get on well as a team and we're doing it because we want to do it."