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Francis Joyon sails to new record
12:38 p.m. EST Feb 5, 2004
The sailing world saluted French solo sailor Francis Joyon as shattered the non-stop solo round-the-world record this morning with his arrival in Brest, more than 20 days ahead of the previous record. Sailing aboard his 90-ft trimaran, IDEC, Francis completed his 26,000 mile journey in less than 73 days.
Francis’s embarked on the journey November 22, 2003. Having lost his previous sponsor, he managed to pull everything together on a shoe-string budget and did not even use the “outside assistance” of weather routing analysis.
At one point in the journey, he and fellow French sailor Jean Luc Van den Heede, who is sailing solo round the world the other way, thought they would come within passing distance of one another. The weather and seas did not permit the “visit,” but hearing the news today, Jean Luc offered his “heartfelt congratulations to Francis Joyon for his magnificent performance!”
Other watchful sailors include Ellen MacArthur, who is still in Aukland on trials with her own new trimaran. She expressed her sadness that she was not in Brest to congratulate Francis herself, and said, “I am incredibly happy for Francis, and I feel that he has completed something not only extraordinary, but in an incredibly successful way. To complete a solo non-stop voyage around the world is an incredible feat, to complete it in the time Francis has, just goes to show what is achievable with determination, strength and courage. He has managed to sail with averages similar to that of a fully-crewed boat. In fact, you can almost forget the averages, because he has just sailed a huge trimaran designed for a crew of eight people around the world. It takes someone fairly special to do that, let alone maintain fully-crewed averages…
"It's an incredible achievement. I hope that Francis' welcome is every bit as huge as he deserves and once the boat is tied up safely alongside after so long at sea, he is able to relax and take a well-earned break. If anyone deserves it it's him.”
Image of Francis arriving aboard IDEC courtesy of trimaran-idec.com
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