PORTLAND – Extreme sailor Bruce Schwab’s attempt to become the first American to complete a nonstop around-the-world solo race would be a lonely effort if it weren’t for the students watching his every move.

Teachers and students around the world are using the Internet to follow the Vendee Globe sailing race and track Schwab’s boat, Ocean Planet. A laboratory in Maine also has a Web site to translate the race into classroom lessons.

“It’s taking the concepts and applying it to something that’s really happening,” said Susan Lamdin, a seventh-grade science teacher in Brunswick whose classroom has adopted Schwab’s big adventure as a project of its own.

Twenty boats and their captains began the race in southwestern France on Nov. 7. The winner is expected to return to the French port after about three months.

Schwab is the only American in the race and spent more than a year on the Portland waterfront preparing. Last week, he closed the 700-mile gap between two leading French sailors. He was in 14th place when he ran into calm winds.

Reached by satellite phone as he sailed slowly southward to the east of Brazil, Schwab said he had long days ahead but that getting children interested in the science of the race had been an important motivator.

“One of the most rewarding things is if you can relate it to other people,” he said. “I feel like people are getting something out of it.”

Lamdin and Christine Miller, a seventh-grade science teacher at Wiscasset Middle School, are using a Web page created by the Bigelow Laboratory in West Boothbay Harbor to follow the race with their students. Lamdin, a former competitive sailor, said she tries to work more ocean sciences into the classroom.

“It just seems ridiculous to be here on the Maine coast and not understand how the weather works and why the ocean currents behave the way they do,” she said.

Schwab called earlier this month and spoke to one of Lamdin’s science classes. The students were excited to talk to him and peppered him with questions, mostly about the competition, the weather, and the lack of sleep.

“The race – the adventure – is just intriguing to them,” Schwab said. “I think it’s a powerful tool.”