Sailing off the Edge Barry Picthall/PPL The 92-foot ENZA, which is being rebuilt for The Race, setting a 1994 round-the-world record On December 31, a fleet of the fastest ocean-racing machines ever built will set sail from Barcelona for what is called, with unapologetic bravado, The Race of the Millennium. The competition couldn't be any simpler—or more dangerous. There are no restrictions on boat design or crew size. There are no stops. And there is only one real rule: The fastest sailboat around the world wins. (First, of course, that boat's got to survive the screaming winds and ship-killing seas of the Southern Ocean, a death zone of merciless water necklacing the bottom of the globe.) You'll find, inthe following pages, a complete preview of The Race—including a profile of America's dark-horse contender, speed-obsessed skipper Cam Lewis. We also offer a design analysis of the most innovative multihull racer ever built and showcase an array of foul-weather apparel fit for the most radical sailing adventure of the 21st century. So climb aboard for this brave and foolhardy drag race through the maelstrom—and hold on tight. Click Here for up-to-date reports on race preparations.

GO SPEED RACER GO

Cam Lewis says he knows the risks—and he's ready. Ready to sprint 25,000 miles in one of the fastest wind-driven vessels ever to grace the ocean, and become the first American skipper to set a round-the-world speed sailing record. That is, if he and his boat make it back in one piece.

By Rob Buchanan

Gerald Bybee

Red-hot helmsman: "I'm not worried," says Lewis, left, photographed near South Hampton, New York, in August. "I know the risks. I don't have a death wish."

THE BREEZE HAD BEEN BUILDING all day. By the end of the afternoon, it was flat-out honking at 25 knots plus, and Penobscot Bay, halfway up the coast of Maine, had become a sheet of windblown spume. As Cameron Lewis and Eric Cusin neared the first windward mark on Lewis's 26-foot Dragonfly class trimaran and the two prepared to set their spinnaker—the billowing, parachute-shaped sail that can add gobs of downwind speed—Cusin noticed that only one other crew was following suit. His first thought was one of intense pride; not everyone can handle a spinnaker in heavy air. Then he began to worry.

For the past couple of years, 15-year-old Cusin had worked as a summertime au pair for Lewis and his wife, Molly. The deal was that he would help look after their two young boys on weekdays and sail with Cam—a four-time world champion in small boats and a legendary multihull ocean racer—on weekends. But it wasn't until that windy day during the annual Camden-to-Rockland race that Cusin fully appreciated what he'd signed on for.

A few minutes into the first downwind leg, a big gust hit the fleet. The other crew with a spinnaker up momentarily lost control of the sail. As it ballooned, their mast suddenly buckled and crashed into the water. Cusin looked at his skipper, eyes wide. With a large lead and the rest of the field too cowed to put up spinnakers and give chase, he assumed Lewis would soon be dropping theirs as well. Nope. Lewis kept playing the huge sail, whooping gleefully as the trimaran shot across the bay. "The speed was insane," Cusin recalls. "We had the leeward hull completely submerged. I was pretty worried. It really looked like it was going to tear right off the boat. Finally I said something about it to Cam. He's like, 'Well, if it goes, just jibe over onto the other hull.'"

Looking back, Cusin laughs at Lewis's nonchalance. One of the hulls flies off? No problem. We'll just finish the race, then go back and pick up the pieces. Remind Lewis of the moment, however, and he tilts his head to one side, shakes it, then exhales through his nose in a bemused, slightly exasperated manner.

"Well, yeah," he says. "We were racing."