Multihulls Racing Around the World
If actual racing, as opposed to America’s Cup lawyering, is your passion, you should direct your attention to the Atlantic Ocean right now. While the nine-boat Barcelona around-the-world fleet is certainly worth following, by no means miss the efforts of singlehander Francis Joyon and his new 100-ft trimaran IDEC, who are going after the singlehanded around the world record set by Ellen MacArthur with the trimaran B&Q / Castrorama, as well as Franck Cammas and his crew on the 105-ft maxi trimaran Groupama III, who are going after the Jules Verne around-the-world record for crewed boats.
IDEC and Groupama III were to start at the same time, which would have made for an interesting comparision, but while Joyon and IDEC were able to start 10 days ago, Groupama III was delayed and is only expected to start today. In a friendly radio chat the other day, Cammas told Joyon that he’d gotten such a great start it wasn’t clear whether the bigger crewed multihull would be able to catch him.
And it’s true that IDEC has gotten off to a very fast start. For after just 10 days of sailing, Joyon and his bright red trimaran are already 752 miles ahead of the pace that MacArthur set in establishing her 71-day record run. You’ll recall that in making a new record, MacArthur beat Joyon’s previous time, set in a very old boat with old sails, by a matter of just hours.
As for Cammas and his crew on Groupama III, they have a very tall order — to beat the 50-day, 16-hour around the world record established by Bruno Peyron and the 120-ft maxi cat Orange II. But they have proven that their big tri — which is much lighter than Orange, and therefore theoretically better in light winds and capable of higher bursts — is capable. After all, Groupama beat Orange II‘s trans-Atlantic record last year, averaging nearly 30 knots all the way across, and in the process, set a new 24-hour record of 796 miles. And no, 796 is not a typo.
So like we said, if you like your sailing heroes to prove their stuff on the water, with incredible courage and mind-boggling speeds, the Atlantic Ocean is the place to look right now.