Transat record demolished

Steve Fossett's giant catamaran takes New York-Lizard passage below five days reports James Boyd from Plymouth

Finally the world's most elusive sailing record has been broken. At 11.47 this morning (10.47GMT) a triumphant Steve Fossett sailing his 125ft catamaran PlayStation flew across the line off Cornwall's Lizard Point to add the west to east transatlantic passage to his large haul of sailing, ballooning and flying records.

In the world of record breaking voyages under sail, the title for the passage from Ambrose Light off New York to the Lizard Point has proved to be one of the most hotly contested, mainly because it is so hard to break. Yet Fossett and his nine crewmen have not simply bettered the previous record, they have pulverised it.

After leaving New York on Friday 5 October at 17.19 GMT, the giant 125ft catamaran arrived off the Lizard just 4 days 17 hours 28 minutes and 6 seconds later, making their average speed somewhere between 25 and 26 knots, depending upon which length you take as their course - officially the World Speed Sailing Record Committee state the distance for this course as 2,925 miles, but Stan Honey, PlayStation's navigator says they sailed 2,885 miles, as close to the great circle distance as possible (the exact circle passes through Newfoundland). Honey says the minimum distance it is possible to sail this course is 2,876 miles. At Honey's estimate their average speed is 25.4 knots.

The previous record set by Frenchman Serge Madec and the crew of the 75ft catamaran Jet Services V in June 1990 stood at 6 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 32 seconds. Since Jet Services V established their record there have been around 25 attempts made on some very serious speedsters from multihulls such as Club Med and 60ft trimarans to monohulls such as Mari Cha III and Gianni Agnelli's Stealth.

This is the fourth attempt on the west-east record Fossett has made on board PlayStation. He came close to breaking the record last year when in August last year he made the passage in 7 days 13 hours and 38 minutes. But the nearest anyone has come to breaking the record was Cam Lewis and the Bourgnon brothers Laurent and Yvan on board the 60ft trimaran Foncia (the former Primagaz rather than Alain Gautier and Ellen MacArthur's trimaran of this name). They were well ahead of the record until they were becalmed just 37 miles from the Lizard finish line.

Fossett is sailing this, the largest racing catamaran in the world, with only nine crewmen. They include navigator Stan Honey, designer/watch leader Gino Morrelli, watch leader Dave Scully, plus Peter Hogg, Sean Biddulph, Dave Calvert, Paul van Dyke and Dave Weir.

More details will follow after PlayStation has docked here in Plymouth.