French sailor Guirec Soudée has just broken a solo, non-stop record that has stood for 22 years for sailing around the world. Actually, strike that, he’s smashed it. Not only that but he’s done so on a boat that many would regard as singularly unsuited for the purpose.
Soudée chose the route less travelled, westabout, against the prevailing winds and currents. The stark fact is that until now only five people have ever completed the non-stop trip. Soudée now makes this six.
His choice of a 32-metre Ultim trimaran for this task is far removed from the type of craft used by the very few adventurous types who have taken this on. Chay Blyth started it all in 1971 with his pioneering single-handed voyage on the 18-metre steel-hulled ketch British Steel. It took him 292 days and was widely regarded at the time as a Herculean achievement to be admired if not enthusiastically challenged.
Indeed it was not until 1994 that Mike Golding bettered this on Team Group 4, a 20m steel sloop from Chay Blyth’s own fleet of commercially-operated westabout racing boats, completing the course in 161 days. Philippe Monnet was the exception to the “metal boat” trend by bringing the record down to 151 days in a 1989-built IMOCA 60 Uunet in 2000.
I check-in with Tudor Team Alinghi’s director for technical and sailing, New Zealand America’s Cup veteran Dave Endean – the man in charge of making sure that in AC38 the Swiss syndicate improves on its somewhat lacklustre performance in the last Cup in Barcelona.
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