Jules Verne Trophy, history of a myth: from Phileas Fogg to Joyon (waiting for Soldini)

In the beginning, it was Phileas Fogg, a London nobleman and protagonist of Jules Verne‘s Around the World in 80 Days, who envisioned himself, for a bet of £20,000, completing the circumnavigation of the globe as quickly as possible and by whatever means available.

I wonder what the elegant gentleman residing on Saville Row would think if he could hear that today the round-the-world trip can also be done in 40 days and exclusively by sail, he who had used every means, from trains to steamboats, to be able to get back to the Reform Club on time and collect his bet. And who knows what he would say upon learning that soon to try there will be
a presumably bright red, Ferrari-branded, full foiling monohull captained by Giovanni Soldini.

Man has always had a special relationship with time: he has tried to control it, organize it, and not content with it he has also tried to challenge it. In many sports one of the main factors is the stopwatch, still the ticking clock. And so sailing is no exception, which with its technological and professional development has ended up creating a new category in its world that of records. Since the 1990s, the highest peak of sailing records has only one name: The Jules Verne Trophy .

Jules Verne Trophy – Origins

In 1990 on the initiative of French sailor Olivier de Kersauson, the “Tour du monde en 80 jours” association was born, a kind of founding committee of the challenge whose members include Peter Blake, Robin Knox-Johnston, Titouan Lamazou, Bruno Peyron and other ocean sailing pioneers of the time. The goal was to launch the most extreme Trophy there is in the world of ocean sailing: that is, to circumnavigate the earth by any means imaginable but on one condition, that this one sail. In 1992 the challenge was officially presented to the Yacht Club de France, and the first attempts began the following year.

The starting line of the Jules Verne Trophy is ideally positioned between the Creac’h Lighthouse in Oussant, France, and Lizard Point in England. The shortest orthodromic route, passing the Cape of Good Hope, leeuwin and Horn, then returning to the starting point, is 21,600, the distance to conquer jules verne.

In its nearly 30-year history there have been 27 attempts started, but only 9 have hit the record, two have narrowly missed it, and all the others have withdrawn due to breakdowns of various kinds. The means employed for the Jules Verne attempts have always been rather “extreme,” always multihulls.

The first to succeed was Bruno Peyron, and for more than 10 years it was the record founders themselves who took turns at winning it: in addition to Peyron, Olivier de Kersauson and Peter Blake succeeded twice. The latter was not yet Sir, but with the record-breaking catamaran Enza New Zealand was beginning to write the history of its own myth.

Jules Verne Trophy – Who are the fastest

Today, the fastest sailing vessels, the only ones currently attempting the Jules Verne record, are the 32-meter-long Ultim Trimarans, capable of doing even more than 800 miles in 24 hours. The holder of the Jules Verne Trophy is Francis Joyon, who, with the trimaran Idec Sport and 6-person crew, managed in 2017 to circumnavigate the world in 40 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds, at an average speed of 26.90 knots. In the same year Francçois Gabart set the benchmark instead for soloists: with the trimaran Macif he completed the round trip in 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds.

If Soldini’s future sailing Ferrari is designed, as it seems, for such a feat, the goal is already clear: the 40-day wall.

Mauro Giuffrè