Orange (II) Crush…

Okay, that’s an obvious headline. But it’s spot on. Bruno Peyron and his crew on Orange II are absolutely mashing, smashing and pulping (okay, that’s it for the juicing jokes) their virtual rivals–Cheyenne and Geronimo–as they power into the Southern Ocean during their outright, non-stop circumnavigation record attempt. They left two weeks ago hoping to leapfrog the St. Helena high in the South Atlantic–a major roadblock during record attempts–and they did exactly that. Now they are into the Roaring Forties and putting up monster daily runs: 686 miles yesterday (just 20 miles short of Orange II’s 24-hour record) and just 640 miles today. The result is that Orange II is a whopping 1790 miles (or more than 4 DAYS!) ahead of Cheyenne’s time to the same point (comparative chart and stats here). Go to the video page of the Orange II website and check out the latest clip (“Orange II: course in the south”) to get a sense of the speed this giant is traveling at (nice flat seas, too). So far, they report no issues with the boat. But there will without doubt be any number of crises ahead (no world record attempt has ever come off without some major problem), and how they handle whatever pops up will affect their record chances much more than inherent boat speed (there’s no doubt this thing is the fastest ocean racing yacht in the world). Bonne chance, Bruno…



“Holy Merde! If we hit a whale or chunk of ice at this speed, we’ll rip the legs right off this cat…”