Great American II sets record

Wilson and du Moulin reach New York after 72 days at sea reports Keith Taylor

A legendary sailing ship record that has remained untouched for a century and a half toppled on Tuesday night when the trimaran Great American II sailed into New York Harbor, 72 days out of Hong Kong.

This morning, American adventurers Rich Wilson and Rich du Moulin were greeted by
cheering family and supporters as their 53-foot sailboat passed the Statue of Liberty soon after 10:00 AM.

"Two and a half months at sea is a long, long time for a classroom session...but it was worth every minute!" said Wilson, skipper of Great American II, as he and du Moulin stowed their ship's sails at Chelsea Piers on Manhattan's West Side. For their entire journey, two men have been communicating with 360,000 school children who were following a series of lesson plans linked to the voyage, on Wilson's www.sitesalive.com web site and in the Newspaper In Education program for schools.

Great American's time from Hong Kong on the 15,000 mile passage to the Ambrose Light Tower off Sandy Hook at the entrance to New York Harbour was 72 days 21 hours 11 minutes and 38 seconds. Her time eclipsed the record of 74 days, 14 hours set by the extreme clipper ship Sea Witch in the China tea trade in 1849. The record, which is one day and 17 hours faster than the old mark, has been reported to the World Speed Sailing Record Council for formal ratification.

Although 154 years of technological development separated these two vessels, Wilson and du Moulin struggled to keep pace with the ghost of the 192ft clipper ship, as they trailed her several times in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

"This voyage was never straightforward," said Wilson, recounting their day by day battle with the Sea Witch. "Every time we turned around, we were behind that great clipper ship... We have lots of appreciation for those great sailors who went before us. Even with the technological advances we enjoyed, we learned not to take any of that for granted. The ocean is a great leveller."

Wilson is already planning future projects for his non-profit sitesALIVE Foundation, in Boston, Mass., with the aim of training teachers to make effective use of communications technology in their classrooms. Another goal is to identify funding sources for schools and school districts with insufficient resources to tap the full power of computers and technology. Du Moulin, who is also Vice-Commodore of the Storm Trysail Club, will be briefly at the desk of his Intrepid Shipping Company in Stamford, Conn., before helping to run the Club's biennial Block Island Race Week at Block Island, R.I in late June.

This was the first time that Du Moulin, a former America's Cup racer, has undertaken a passage of such duration. "I had to have an element of competition in this," said du Moulin. "I had to have the daily benchmark - so I was keeping all these statistics, my own tally. Until we got to the northeast tradewinds off of Brazil, ten of the eleven fastest daily passages were held by Sea Witch. The Sea Witch could handle the heavy seas of the Indian Ocean. She could charge through them doing 300-miles days, one after another, while we had to slow down in those conditions. Our advantage was in the light stuff. Taking Sea Witch on in the trade routes was a bigger challenge than people realise."

On arrival, both men said time with their families and fresh food were their top priorities as they prepared to return to their normal business life after weeks cooped up in the tiny cabin of their wave-tossed boat.

Without the benefits of refrigeration they were limited for most of the voyage to a diet of freeze-dried, preserved and packaged food.

Fatigued but buoyant, Wilson reported their arrival off New York Harbor to the Sandy Hook pilot vessel on Tuesday night after a frustrating day of slow sailing in calms and light airs that followed in the wake of wet and squally weather that drenched New York.

Hailing the pilots on VHF radio, Wilson employed the traditional vernacular of the era of sail. "Sandy Hook pilots, this is the sailing vessel Great American II," Wilson said. "We are 72 days out of Hong Kong by way of Sunda Strait, Cape Agulhas and the Cape of Good Hope, bound for New York. We request you log the finish time of our voyage at
Ambrose Light."



Rich Wilson (right) and Richard de Moulin

Great American's return to New York Harbor marked the completion of a brace of record passages - the just-finished voyage from Hong Kong, plus one from New York to Melbourne, Australia last year when she smashed the record set by the American extreme clipper ship Mandarin as she carried prospectors to the Australian Gold Rush in the winter of 1855-56.

Even though they broke the record on Tuesday night with their arrival at Ambrose Light, the two men continued sailing overnight, waiting out calms and light winds until a light breeze carried Great American II across her original 2001 starting line this morning at the Statue of Liberty. The tug Zachery Reinauer was on hand to record the finish and
was joined by the tugs Miriam Moran and Baltic Sea, plus well wishers and supporters on several other boats.

In 1993 Wilson sailed the same boat around treacherous Cape Horn from San Francisco to New York, breaking the record of the clipper ship Northern Light and setting a new mark of 69 days 20 hours. A prior attempt in 1990 in a previous Great American trimaran nearly ended in tragedy when she capsized in hurricane force winds and giant seas off Cape Horn. Wilson and his crewman were rescued in a daring feat of seamanship by the containership New Zealand Pacific that went to their aid.

A life-long asthmatic - he takes four medications daily - Wilson knows that his accomplishments have a strong resonance with schoolchildren who suffer from asthma and other medical conditions. "I had to be a scientist about my own body," he tells young students, "because even if I saw my doctor twice each year, for a half-hour, that was only an hour each year. But I had to live in my body for the rest of the year: he didn't. So I had to be smart and help him to help me with my asthma."

Wilson, 52, lives in the tiny seaport town of Rockport, north of Boston. Raised and educated in Boston, Wilson received an A.B. Degree in Mathematics from Harvard College, an S.M. Degree in Interdisciplinary Science from MIT and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He has worked as a math teacher in Boston, a defense analyst in Washington, DC, and as technical consultant on power/desalination plants in Saudi Arabia.

He was also a successful investor in six entertainment companies in Massachusetts. Du Moulin, 56, lives in Larchmont, New York. His love of sailing and his career in the shipping industry indicate the depth and breadth of his passion for all things maritime. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (1968) and Bachelor of Engineering (1969) from Dartmouth College, and an M.B.A. (1974) from Harvard Business School.

Du Moulin has competed at all levels of sailing competition including four America's Cup campaigns, two Transatlantic Races, and 17 Newport-Bermuda Races.

Some 360,000 schoolchildren followed the adventure of Great American II on a daily basis through the sitesALIVE! educational program at www.sitesALIVE.com. Students have been schooled in math, science, history, language arts, and the hard lessons of life at sea, through the unique Internet-based programs Wilson has created around his record runs across the world's oceans