Maiden 2 record

James Boyd caught up with skipper Brian Thompson to find about their secretive round Britain record

At Dover with dusk settling, they opted to cut inside the Goodwin Sands and experienced a hair raising moment when their GPS, vital for enabling them to thread their way through the hazardous sandbanks, went down. At the time they were travelling at 25 knots and it was only when they were half way through that after some frantic scrabbling around on board they discovered that the mount for the antenna had come adrift. "We were only drawing 2 metres [with the boards up] but it was low tide on springs and we could have run aground easily" said Thompson. Fortunately there were a few buoys to help them and they had passed through the notorious Sands en route to London in July.

They charged on north and it was while they were on the same latitude as Hull that night that the wind died completely. "It was incredible," said Thompson. "The boat speed went from 25 knots to zero in about five boat lengths. We just parked and spent seven hours looking at the same oil rig." Then the same 25 knot wind just filled in again. "There was no front - the wind just stopped and then came back again."

The 25 knot westerly held until they were passing the Orkneys and perhaps one of the most impressive parts of this trip was that 24 hours into the trip - and despite being becalmed for seven hours - they had reached the same latitude as Edinburgh.

Getting round the Shetlands was slower as Maiden 2 came close to the centre of the depression and experienced light 4-5 knot westerly winds. The breeze slowly backed and having been on port gybe all the way up the North Sea, they were force to gybe and by the time they were approaching the Shetlands the wind continued to head them putting them hard on the wind. At one point the wind left them altogether again.

While they were able to sail a more or less direct course to the top of the Shetlands, behind them Olivier de Kersauson, it is believed, had to head further east into the North Sea in order to do.

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