So near, yet so far for Club Med in Cook Strait

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Grant Dalton did not bother to change his shirt for the long-awaited moment when he saw his wife and children again in Cook Strait yesterday.

In fact, the fervent New Zealand skipper has not taken his shirt off for 33 days since he left Barcelona on his monstrous catamaran Club Med.

It was just as well, then, that Dalton never got really close yesterday to his wife, Nicky, and children, Eloise and Mack.

The closest they got was 20m, when the 32m racing cat came bow-to-bow with the launch the Dalton family were on.

It will be worse in about a month's time, when the family are reunited at the end of The Race in Marseilles, France.

Dalton swears he is not going to change his clothes at all during this non-stop circumnavigation of the globe.

"This shirt is going all the way. I went 25 days without changing once, so I'm going to go for the whole 60 days," he said from on board Club Med yesterday.

It was an emotional day for the two exhausted New Zealanders on the boat - Dalton and veteran round-the-world navigator Mike Quilter - as they became the first team to pass the halfway point of the race.

It was the first time they had been near land, and the first time they had seen other humans in over a month.

"It was much harder than I thought it would be," Dalton said. "You're waving frantically at your kids but you can't talk to them.

"I just have to remember it will all be over in a month."

Nicky Dalton waited five hours on lumpy seas before her husband came into view off Stephens Island at the start of Cook Strait.

After reaching speeds of 39 knots smashing through the Southern Ocean, Dalton experienced one of his great fears - the boat suddenly stopped dead in the water.

For the first time in 33 days, Club Med was becalmed, sitting off Farewell Spit in light and fluky winds.

It did not matter to the Dalton kids, who went fishing while they waited for their dad.

"The kids had huge smiles on their faces - they were just so excited to see the boat," Nicky Dalton said.

"But it's kind of weird waving hello and goodbye at the same time.

"We'll be feeling pretty sad when it hits us tonight.

"But it must be worse for the guys on the boat, sailing on by knowing they still have another month at sea."

A small spectator fleet followed the catamaran as it tacked endlessly along the South Island coast in a difficult headwind.

"A cray boat pulled alongside and the fishermen did a haka and dropped their trousers,"said Dalton.

Club Med now heads back into the Southern Ocean, with a 700-mile lead over the next boat, Innovation Explorer.

The French yacht is expected to enter Cook Strait tomorrow, and it could yet stop in Wellington for repairs.

Herald Online Marine News