Annals Of Adventure–Francis Joyon Hits The Route Of Discovery: When we last checked in on French solo sailing supremo Joyon, he had just smashed the solo round-the-world record, and had become the first multihull sailor to complete a circumnavigation solo and non-stop. Now Joyon is gearing up his 90-foot trimaran, IDEC, for a run at the east/west transatlantic record, from Cadiz, Spain to San Salvador, The Bahamas. Joyon says he will be setting off Wednesday morning, and the time to beat is 9 days 13 hours 30 minutes and 18 seconds. That mark was set by Steve Fossett and the full PlayStation team in February 2003 (with yours truly as chief bottle washer and grinder grunt; see my story about the run here). For Joyon to beat this record alone, on a smaller boat (PlayStation is 125 feet), seems ridiculous. But Joyon’s solo round-the-world record also crushed many a crewed multihull time, so you can never count him out. He’s one of the most formidable racing sailors out there, and TWC will have to monitor this one closely…



IDEC At Speed: “Fossett has a two dozen world records so I couldn’t care less about relieving him of this one. But that pathetic Zimmermann guy. This is his only one…”