In 2017, the Spindrift Racing team had twice tried to break the Jules Verne Trophy record aboard its maxi-trimaran. The crew of 12 sailors - led by Yann Guichard, skipper of Spindrift 2 - reiterates the challenge in 2018 . And the stand-by will start on November 5 in Brest, waiting for favourable weather conditions to set off around the world and try to lower the time set by Francis Joyon in 2017 by 40 days 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds
Of the 14 sailors in the Spindrift collective - 11 will be leaving alongside Yann Guichard: multihull sailors with a mix of Olympic, match racing and ocean racing experience
The regulars will be featured - the core of the Spindrift team that races all year round with Yann and Donna Bertarelli, his partner: Christophe Espagnon, François Morvan, Xavier Revil, Jacques Guichard and Erwan Israël.
Chris Schmid/Spindrift racing
The solo sailors Thierry Chabagny, Sam Goodchild and Erwan Le Roux, who are used to sailing alone aboard their respective Figaro, Class40 and Multi50 boats, and for the last two, entered on the Route du Rhum 2018
Benjamin Schwartz from Lyon, Jackson Bouttell from Australia and Duncan Späth from Switzerland will complete the crew. The first two already have a victorious round the world trip with Dongfeng race team, in the technical team in charge of electronics for Benjamin and on deck for Jackson who was number one. As for Duncan, he will be the pledge of the event. Son of Donna, he followed the first campaigns and sailed on the maxi trimaran during the Fastnet 2015 and the Québec Saint-Malo 2016.
Thierry Duprey Du Vorsent and Morgan Lagravière took the place of substitutes, while Jean-Yves Bernot played the role of the essential position of onshore router.
