Yachtsman Francois Joyon managed to set a new world record in solo circumnavigation.
Starting on his 30m IDEC trimaran from Brest in November 2007, Joyon circumnavigated the globe in just 57 days 13 hours 34 minutes and 6 seconds.
The result obtained by him surpasses, by more than two weeks, the record of 2005, owned by the Englishwoman Helen MacArthur. Unique is the fact that the time of her journey differed from the previous achievement of Francois Joyon by only a day. Now it will be very difficult to surpass the achievement of the French yachtsman.
Despite all the difficulties that arose during the journey, Joyon successfully covered 38.9 thousand km (21.6 thousand nautical miles) on a trimaran. His route lay south of the African Cape of Good Hope and Cape Luin in Australia. Throughout the voyage, Ruian set several more records. In addition to the best result he achieved in terms of speed within one day, the yachtsman was able to cross the Indian Ocean in nine days and 12 hours, and the Pacific Ocean in 10 days and 14 hours.
After his triumphant return to Brest, Francois Joyon answered the questions of international journalists at the traditional press conference after the end of the race. According to the yachtsman himself, there was only one chance in four to successfully set a new speed record. Therefore, such a result of his circumnavigation was a worthy reward for all the difficulties that he had to face on the journey. One of the main ones was that the yachtsman could not afford to sleep for more than two hours in a row.
Joyon also thanked the designers who took part in the creation of the IDEC trimaran. In a response speech, one of them noted that despite the fantastically successful design of the yacht, the main merit in the success of the circumnavigation belongs to Francois Joyon, whose contribution to the testing of new technologies is invaluable.
