The Horn in record time

Outstanding feat for Francis Joyon in his round the world voyage

At 10:21GMT this morning on day 49 of his attempt to set a new time for sailing non-stop around the world singlehanded, Francis Joyon rounded Cape Horn to begin his return trip up the Atlantic.

To give some indication of what an achievement this is, 49 days into the last Vendee Globe, present record Michel Desjoyeaux aboard PRB was just crossing the International Dateline some 3,450 miles back down the track. Joyon passed this same position on day 38 of his current voyage. Joyon has calculated his time from Brest to Cape Horn as 49 days, 2 hours, 21 minutes which he sees as being a comfortable 13 days and 3 hours ahead of Desjoyeaux.

Compared to the recent Jules Verne Trophy attempts Oliver de Kersauson in Geronimo last spring rounded Cape Horn on day 41 of his attempt (only have his record prospects subsequently shattered while sailing back up the Atlantic), while current Jules Verne Trophy holder Bruno Peyron on Orange passed it on day 42 a year before. Both attempts were on larger boats and were fully crewed.

More significant is that when Olivier de Kersauson set the Jules Verne Trophy aboard Sport Elec - the same boat Joyon is currently sailing - he rounded on day 47, just two days faster than Joyon has managed.

Joyon was accompanied around the Horn with 45 knot winds and was close enough to see it. "Beautiful, it was really very beautiful," commented Joyon. "At daybreak, I could see that the mountains were snow-covered despite this being the middle of summer. The tops in the distance were completely white, I really did not expect that. The extremely jagged east coast, has this incredible wild beauty."

Yesterday evening Joyon had approached the Horn from the northwest and found the wind increased rapidly. "I was under the small gennaker with one reef in the mainsail, and it was necessary to get rid of it hyper-quickly and I went down to three reefs and storm jib as I approached the coast. While downwind of the small insland I could smell the guano!"

Rounding the Horn was extremely gusty the wind being funnelled down through the mountains and once round Joyon was facing 45 knot winds.

To return to the finish line at Brest Joyon still has in the order of 7,000 miles left to go as the crow flies. In the Pacific part of the Southern Ocean Joyon was averaging arund 400 miles per day. Maintaining this average it would take him 17.5 days to get to Brest - a circumnavigation of 56.5 days!

Obviously in the lighter more fickle winds of the Atlantic Joyon won't be able to maintain anything like this average and his course is likely to be considerably more than 7,000 miles as he rounded the Azores high for example. He will also firmly have in his mind the outcome of Olivier de Kersauson's voyage last year and will be doing his uttermost to avoid any areas which might leave him becalmed. Still, given that the present record is 93 days, Joyon will be reassured that he has 44 days to reach Brest, requiring him to average just over 6 knots.