Jules Verne Scrum–Fossett has Company Again: Orange II crossed the start line in the English Channel this morning, with a much better weather outlook for the first week than Fossett enjoyed. Instead of working the spanking new boat up carefully over a period of months, Peyron and his crew are basically sea-trialling it on a round the world voyage. It’s risky, and the boat could easily start falling apart, but Peyron knows more about these giant multihulls than just about any sailor in the world so he could pull it off. Meanwhile, down in the South Atlantic, Fossett and Cheyenne have been slowed a bit by lighter winds. They are still within a few hours of Orange I’s 2002 record pace, and are getting to a spot where Orange I was really slow. So if Fossett is lucky, he could be ahead of the record by the end f the week. If he’s not, he’s still got two-thirds of the globe to try and catch up. What’s it like onboard? Here’s a Scully update:

“Sail, eat, sail, sleep, sail, how can you beat it?” asks crewmember Damian Foxall. Well, it can take a little out of you, too. Since yesterday’s festivities, we have been close reaching in stiffish trades. The boat is working hard, bucking like a mechanical bull as she drives through the frothy blue crests.

Reefing, unreefing, changing headsails, we need to get some longer daily runs in while the going is good.

No word on a restart date for Geronimo, but it could be as soon as next week. And just to make the course a little more crowded, a Polish crew is setting out today in a 60-foot monohull to set the first non-stop, fully crewed monohull mark. Non one has ever bothered to go after this one before, so even if it takes them a year they’ll have the record (at least for a little while). More details to come….



Peyron with a New Boat, New Record Attempt: “This thing better make it through at least the first week without falling into pieces….”