Orange underway

Speedy departure for Bruno Peyron's maxi-catamaran on west to east transat record attempt

Bruno Peyron and the crew of the maxi-catamaran Orange II passed Ambrose Light off New York at 21h 44' 38" GMT last night marking the start of their attempt on the west to east transatlantic record. Orange II has been on stand-by for an in New York since 10th August.

At 0600 this morning, the catamaran was south of Rhode Island and was progressing in an easterly direction at 28 knots on a bearing of 80°. They had covered 174 miles during the first 6 hours of sailing, at an average speed of 29 knots.

The great circle between New York and the Lizard goes across southern Newfoundland, so the shortest course is hugging the coast of Nova Scotia and Cape Race at the bottom end of Newfoundland.

At present there is a very nice race track opening up in front of Orange. To the south of the great circle are two high pressure systems while a low pressure system is developing over Nova Scotia and is forecast to head northeast and on a typical North Atlantic depression track. The isobars are compressing nice between these two with some strong southwesterlies forecast. In short the conditions look peachy for Orange II.

This record is relatively short following PlayStation's blinding time of just 4 days, 17 hours, 28 minutes and 6 seconds. To better this Orange 2 will have to arrive off the Lizard no later than 15:12:44 GMT on Wednesday, 25 August.

Get going chaps...