Bruno Peyron interview - pt1

James Boyd caught up with the world's most experienced big cat sailor and organiser of The Race

Bruno Peyron, leading maxi-catamaran sailor, and the visionary behind The Race is ruminating over what he will do in the future, the next running of The Race and a new race boat. madforsailing caught up him prior to the start of the Volvo Ocean Race.
By way of introduction, Peyron comes from the talented family based in the upmarket seaside resort of La Baule. His brother is trimaran sailor Loick of Fujicolor and rig dropping Fujifilm fame. His uncle is Jean-Yves Terlain, who raced Open 60s in the 1980s.

Bruno Peyron has been sailing big cats since the early 1980s and achieved his greatest success in 1993 when he lined up against the duo of Peter Blake and Robin-Knox-Johnston plus Olivier de Kersauson on the start line of the first attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy: to sail around the world non-stop in less than 80 days.

While the latter two boats withdrew with serious damage to their boats, Peyron and his team on Commodore Explorer contined and succeeded in crossing the finish line off Brest just inside 80 days - a phenomenal achievement considering that at the time the record stood at 109 days.

The Race

It is debatable whether Peyron created The Race to be the ultimate round the world competition or whether it was to fulfil his personal desire to bring a new generation of giant multihulls into the world. Although a certain amount of chaos surrounded the organisation of The Race (it was after all the first time this ambitious event had run) when the event wound up in Marseilles in March, Peyron had achieved both.

Continued on page two and three...