Most legendary offshore racing yachts don’t retire in glory. They end up tied to a dock, outdated and slowly fading as faster, lighter designs take their place. But it doesn’t have to end this way.
In a world where sustainability drives innovation, some of these icons are being reborn—not as museum pieces, but as entirely new machines. Instead of scrapping advanced composite hulls, we extend their life. We preserve maritime heritage. We push the boundaries of sustainable refit engineering. This is circular economy thinking in action.
Now, a former high-performance racing yacht is being transformed into a luxury superyacht for elite charter in the Mediterranean and Caribbean—proof that old heroes don’t disappear. They evolve Team Adventure was conceived in the design offices of Gilles Ollier & Associates, widely regarded as the world’s foremost designers of large high-performance catamarans, and constructed by the legendary French multihull specialists Multiplast. Launched in 2000 and measuring an extraordinary 115 feet in length, she was one of the largest of the maxi-multihulls built for the grueling 27,000-mile nonstop circumnavigation event known simply as The Race. Designed for outright speed, Team Adventure quickly established herself as one of the fastest multihulls in the world, capable of remarkable back to back daily runs exceeding 600 nautical miles in 24 hours – numbers that made her one of the fastest sailboats in the world at the turn of the millennium.
During The Race, she led the fleet of giant catamarans south into the formidable Southern Ocean, where massive seas and relentless conditions tested both boat and crew. Where in one day of massive waves and 13 large icebergs, the boat hit a wave at 45 knots and 2 crew men were injured. Forced to divert more than 1,000 miles north to South Africa for repairs in what was intended to be a non-stop race, the team lost valuable time but demonstrated resilience and determination by continuing on to finish the circumnavigation working their way from last to third place.
In August 2001, while attempting to smash the Transatlantic speed record and already fourteen hours out of New York and one and a half days ahead of the existing record, Team Adventure struck a submerged object in thick fog. The impact sheared off her port bow, catastrophically damaging the hull. Although the crew managed to save the rig, the incident effectively brought her front-line racing career to a halt. Even so, Team Adventure remains a defining symbol of the brief but extraordinary era of maxi ocean-racing catamarans when designers and sailors first started pushing the limits of size, engineering, and speed in pursuit of global records.
The goal now is to create a yacht that blends 30+ knot sailing performance with the full opulence of a superyacht interior. With a main salon measuring 55ft x 55ft and 6 state rooms for 12 guests. The yacht will have structural reinforcement for comfort and durability, replacing 30 feet of the original structure and lengthening the hulls to optimize balance and performance. Engineers have carefully managed the added mass distribution, updating the foils and rebalancing the sail plan and rig loads to maintain stability and performance. This is not a cosmetic upgrade; it is a complex naval architectural puzzle.
The result will not simply be a refitted boat. It will be a former ocean warrior reimagined for a highspeed luxury experience—capable of delivering both thrilling performance and five-star comfort. Old heroes do not have to fade away. Some evolve—faster, smarter, and more extraordinary than ever.
Currently in Bristol, Rhode Island, the refit has commenced at Fast Forward Composites and is due to be finished in 2027. The transformation has been the brain child and undertaking of Larry Rosenfeld, the owner and project lead. Rosenfeld was the co-founder of Team Adventure and the onboard navigator for The Race. Tommy Gonzalez, President of Fast Forward Composites is leading the rebuild and Cam Lewis, the original skipper of Team Adventure returns as the new project’s skipper.
