IDEC Sport Takes on the Tea Route
Hong Kong to London Record
Two days ago, Francis Joyon and his crew of four set off from Hong Kong to tackle Giovanni Soldini and Maserati’s record time of 36 days and change for the ‘Tea Route’ record from Hong Kong to London. IDEC Sport is more than 200 miles ahead of the reference time and gaining. Eating up fast downwind miles in moderate northeasterly trade winds in the South China Sea, IDEC Sport is hurtling toward her first major navigational challenges of this record attempt — the equator and Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, known for light air and strong countercurrents. The team will have to tiptoe through a soft patch in the breeze before they get into faster conditions of running downhill across the Indian Ocean in fresh southeast trades.
Shoreside weather router Christian Dumard will surely have to earn his pay as the weather window approaching the Sunda Strait and Indian Ocean looks highly complex, with multiple highs and lows creating many transition zones across the course.
“We have slimmed down the boat as much as possible,” Joyon explained. “We even left our tender behind in Hong Kong. Giovanni and his crew were very quick in the transition phases. We are going to have to keep up with their pace in the coming days in some very light airs around the equator and on the passage through the Sunda Strait. We hope to enter the Indian Ocean within two days and a few hours. Crossing the China Sea in less than five days would be good enough for us.”
Onboard IDEC Sport — the current holder of the Trophée Jules Verne for fastest outright circumnavigation — are Francis Joyon, Antoine Blouet, Christophe Houdet, Bertrand Delesne and Corentin Joyon (Francis’ son). You can track IDEC Sport’s ‘Tea Trade’ attempt here
Cape 2 Rio
Speaking of Soldini and his 70-ft VPLP trimaran Maserati, they have been engaged in a two-boat match race with the 80-ft VPLP maxi-trimaran Love Water (ex-Ultim Emotion 2/Prince de Bretagne/Sodebo) for over a week in the 16th edition of the Cape 2 Rio race. Despite several problems, collisions and subsequent repairs made at sea, Maserati stayed close to the bigger 80-footer before falling victim to a soft patch and finishing some 7 hours behind Love Water, which was skippered by South African Craig Sutherland and arrived in a time of 7 days, 20 hours, 24 minutes to establish a new course record.
The previous record for the course had been set by Soldini and Maserati (the Volvo 70 monohull) in a time of 10 days, 11 hours and 29 minutes.