Francis Joyon shatters North Atlantic record by more than 16 hours

Arrival Sunday afternoon

In his quest to beat the North Atlantic single-handed sailing record, Francis Joyon on board IDEC, has smashed Thomas Coville’s 2008 record by 16 hours, 34 minutes and 30 seconds.

Joyon completed his journey in a time of 5 days, 2 hours, 56 minutes and 10 seconds.

Routes of Thomas Coville vs Francis Joyon (in red orthodromy)
zoom on arrival at Cape Lizard
Great Circle distance : 2,865 NM • Average speed : 23.30 Kts
Distance Over Ground : 3,222 NM • SOG : 26.20 Kts

Over the final stretch, Francis Joyon came very close to beating his own outright distance record over 24 hours (666.2 miles) and this enabled the Breton skipper to make important gains over the second half of the crossing, in spite of sailing some distance away from the Great Circle Route.

 Joyon, with the loyal support of router Jean-Yves Bernot achieves
the unique feat of holding all four major solo offshore sailing records.
photo J-M Liot