Maxi Cat on the Way . . . Maybe

The 110-ft catamaran Gitana 13 may have left New York yesterday on a nonstop record attempt to San Francisco via Cape Horn. (We were unable to confirm departure time by today’s ‘Lectronic Latitude, but will hopefully have that information by Friday’s posting.) If our information is correct, the boat should be arriving here around February 20. And what a boat she is. Originally built as Innovation Explorer for The Race — the crewed maxi-multihull race around the world in 2002 — she took second under skipper Loick Peyron. (Sistership Club Med won and the final ‘triplet’, Cam Lewis’s Team Adventure, took third.) Later in 2002, Loick’s brother Bruno Peyron skippered the boat under the Orange name and livery to a new Jules Verne nonstop round-the-world mark. An attempt at the same record by Ellen MacArthur in 2003 ended when the boat — as Offshore Challenge — was dismasted in the Indian Ocean.

In 2006, the Gitana Team, which currently runs a stable of four large offshore racing boats, acquired the big cat and brought her back to her birthplace at Vannes for a complete refit. She emerged last January as Gitana 13, leaner, meaner, prettier — and hopefully faster — than ever. Plans for two Atlantic record attempts last year were scrapped when the boat hit an underwater object that shattered one of her rudders a few days into the Route of Discovery  (Cadiz-San Salvador).

It’s unclear when the decision was made to attempt the NY-SF record. But G-13 — skippered by Lionel Lemonchois — should have little trouble picking this ripe plum. The current record of 57 days, 3 hours, 21 minutes was set in 1998 by Yves Parlier on the Open 60 Aquitaine Innovations — a monohull half the size of Gitana 13. If she is indeed on the way, Gitana 13 would be the largest maxi-cat ever to visit San Francisco, and the first large multi since a brief pit stop by Olivier de Kersauson’s 110-ft trimaran Geronimo in 2006.