A challenge full of self-sacrifice
42 days 16 hours 40 minutes and 35 seconds is the time it took François Gabart to complete his single-handed round the world voyage via the three capes on his trimaran Macif ! Having set out to hunt on the flowerbeds of Thomas Coville, who had achieved the feat of taking the record in less than 50 days in December 2016, François Gabart has in turn just entered the legend of the great sailors! He has improved on the reference time by 6 days 10 hours 23 minutes and 53 seconds.
It also records the second absolute crew and solo round the world time combined. Only Idec Sport (Francis Joyon) did better on 26th January 2017 on the Jules Verne Trophy (40 days 23 hours 30 minutes and 30 seconds).
27,859.7 miles covered at an average speed of 27.2 knots and an incredible course with reference times at every major stage, except for the outward passage of the Equator . An incredible record which can be explained by a combination of 3 factors: good weather conditions, a boat which is well tuned and fast and which has moreover beaten the distance record in 24 hours (for the record, 851 miles between 13th and 14th November against 784, a record which already belonged to him) but also a François Gabart pushing back his limits!
Questioned on Friday, François Gabart confided, when asked about the record he was about to beat: " I never would have dreamed of that stopwatch. On paper, with the weather, with what I was able to do with this boat, it was possible to beat the record, but in the best scenarios, by one or two days. It's quite extraordinary .
Congratulations, François Gabart, for this great feat of self-sacrifice! You will find images of the skipper's arrival in Brest on the Bateaux.com website during the day.
Congratulations from Thomas Coville
"This time Francois, it's just masterful! He's also so much in line with what he's managed to do for the past three or four years. We're going to talk a lot about this time, this journey. All the people who will say: you had a better boat, you had good weather, it might have been true. But at the start, you were the one who tried it, you were the one who went for it, you had it in your gut and what you did was masterful!
This escalation of records feeds what we are trying to build together with the Ultime collective. It justifies all the more that with Sodebo, we are building a new boat and it projects us all towards 2019. Thanks to what we're building together, we're experiencing a historic moment where ocean racing has never been so alive. I'm so excited about what we have in front of us, what we're going to be able to experience while racing and all together. Once again, congratulations!"
The key news of the round-the-world record
Departure date: Saturday, November 04 at 10:05 am (French time)
- Transit time Ushant/Ecuador: 05 d 20 h 45 min
- Ushering/Good Hope passage time: 11 d 20 h 10 min (new absolute reference time)
- Ushant/Cap des Aiguilles passage time: 11 d 22 h 20 min (new absolute reference time)
- Ushant/Cap Leeuwin transit time: 19 d 14 h 10 min (new reference time)
- Ushant/Cap Horn passage time: 29 d 3 h 15 min (new reference time)
- Ushant/Equator return transit time: 36 d 1 h and 30 min (new absolute reference time)
- Passage time Equator/Ecuador: 30 d 4 h and 45 min (new solo record)
- Passage time Cape Horn/Equator: 06 d 22 h and 15 min (new absolute reference time)
24-hour mile record: 851 miles (14/11/2017)
