Frenchman sets record of circumnavigation in 49 days? How is this possible?

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Rohan

France's Thomas Coville sets new round-the-world sailing record of 49 days

French sailor Thomas Coville sets new record for solo sailing circumnavigation | Sports | DW.COM | 25.12.2016


So in a 31' trimaran, Thomas Coville sailed 51,000 km in 49 days. I did the math and that comes out to an average of 43 km per hour, or 23 knots! However he did it, that's incredible.

Someone help me here - how is that possible? I can understand doing a sustained 23 knots in a trimaran, and even faster for awhile, but AVERAGE that as a constant non-stop for 49 days? How did he even catch such strong wind that whole time? Woudn't he have had some days of calm? And even if he did, that means when he was sailing, it must have been much faster than 23 knots.

I have only small experience with trimarans, and none with circumnavigation, but I have a hard time understanding this.

Those big tri's can sail at multiples of windspeed.

[yvest]

Joyon and crew are now ahead in their "almost ready for scrap" tri

Trimaran IDEC • Trophée Jules Verne 2016

They have done really an amazing series of days riding the same low, and it's not over !!

[Polux]

Cheers to them!!! if they pull out this one, even by a small margin, it would not be a smaller feat than the one of Coville:They are sailing on a considerably smaller trimaran with less than half the crew, if compared with the record holder.

The boat they are sailing, with other name, was the one that had the previous record, before the actual one by Peyron. That one belonged to Franck Cammas that achieve that also with a bigger crew. Cammas is a great sailor and his record was pulverized by Peyron and his much bigger boat, doing it in almost less three days.

So what they have to do is to take about three days to what what Cammas had done with the same boat and a bigger crew!!!!!

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

Can anyone show the actual route in a map?

I think we can agree that Sir Chichester sailed along differently than someone dipping the Atlantic southbound, circling the pole and heading back north.

To me, if inquired, CIrcumnavigating nonstop means passing by cape Horn, cape of Good Hope, SOUTH of NZ, and be back in NOrthern emisphere exactly where you started from (although touching back the same continent on the other side is a C. Too, but not record-Wise, imo)

That said, bravery and good Lück are out of discussion

There is an obvious difference between a non-stop circumnavigation which obviously means that you cannot use either canal and a regular, garden variety circumnavigation using one or both canals. When we did our rtw it did consist of starting/finishing in the same spot (in our case, Grenada), crossing all the meridians and crossing the equator twice (off Ecuador) and in the Atlantic off Brazil.

It would be possible to end up where you started in the northern hemisphere (via the canals and the Red Sea or via the north east and north west passages). In the southern hemisphere you could do it via the capes. Whether these are circumnavigations would depend on the definition you used of course.

[FilBrown]

The fact that it was all downhill helped....

[Polux]

Providing they wont find on the South Atlantic so bad conditions (light winds and no wind) as the leaders of the Vendee globe, things look well for them:

They have now over a 1000nm advantage, they have sailed 768nm on the last 24 hours and they are going right now over 36k!!!!

[TheThunderbird]

Thanks all for answers and pictures provided.

Sailing is really on another level here