Dona Bertarelli, Yann Guichard, and their team have ended their standby period for a fourth attempt at the Jules Verne Trophy around-the-world sailing record. The team has been ready to tackle the record since November 1, but there has not been a suitable weather window for the crew of the maxi trimaran Sails of Change (ex-Spindrift 2) to set sail with a realistic chance of beating the record.
With limitations within weather forecasting, it is key to maximize the team’s chances during the first section of the route for any hope to beat the around-the-world record under sail. The primary challenge is to make a very fast passage from the island of Ushant to the equator (within the record time of 4 days 19 hours and 57 minutes set by Spindrift 2 herself in 2019).
The crew would then need to make the southern tip of Africa in under 12 days, to be level with the previous record. With this in mind, since November 1, Guichard (skipper), Benjamin Schwartz (navigator) and Jean-Yves Bernot (onshore router) have been analyzing the weather in a bid to pinpoint the perfect configuration for linking these two sequences together…