06.07.2006
Orange II shatters the North Atlantic record
4 days, 8 hours, 23 mn and 54 s is the new time to beat for the North Atlantic crossing.
The new record was set by Bruno Peyron and his eleven crewmen on board the maxi-catamaran Orange II.
The maxi catamaran is about to finish
The deed is almost done. Unless there is some damage or an incident occurs in the last minutes, Bruno Peyron and the other eleven men on board will be smashing the North Atlantic record this evening. Already the fastest around the world and the fastest over 24 hours, the Orange II maxi catamaran is due at the finishing line off The Lizard at around 19H GMT. They will thus have crossed the Atlantic in 4 days and around 7 hours, improving by about ten hours on Steve Fossett’s record, that was said to be unbeatable. Quite amazing.
In a few hours, Orange II will be almost certainly be entering the history books of sailing by shattering the North Atlantic record between New York and The Lizard at the south western tip of Britain. After one final tack to get back on track, Bruno Peyron’s maxi-catamaran with her crew of eleven others is due to cross the finishing line at around 19H GMT, thus improving on the time set by Steve Fossett’s PlayStation by around ten hours. They will be raising the bar once again that was previously set at 4 days, 17 hours, 28 minutes and 6 seconds.
At the check-in at 14h18 GMT, Orange II only had about 80 miles to go and was still advancing at an average speed of 20 knots. As expected, the wind eased off and the crew have been gentle with their boat due to the damage to Orange II’s port rudder following a collision with an unidentified floating object the day before yesterday.
During the radio session with Jean Maurel, Bruno Peyron explained: «The speed has dropped off, but it was deliberate because of the problem with the rudder and the wind eased off as forecast. However, still with 17 knots of wind, we’re managing speeds of 24 knots… »
Above all, on the contrary to what happened during the 2004 attempt, when they had to push the boat hard and failed by a measly half hour, Orange II is this time a long way ahead in her position. At the fifth comparison point, they had a lead of almost 300 miles over PlayStation… or around half a day’s sailing.
«We’re using our lead well including in our calculations the short final tack», explained Bruno Peyron, that isn’t worrying me. We’re really acting cautiously to ensure that the rudder stays with us until the end.»
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