1997. The history of sailing record fever

Welcome to the special section “GdV 5th Years.” We are introducing you, day by day, An article from the archives of the Journal of Sailing, starting in 1975. A word of advice, get in the habit of starting your day with the most exciting sailing stories-it will be like being on a boat even if you are ashore.

Record fever

Taken from the 1997 Journal of Sailing, Year 23, No. 02, March, pp. 36-47.

Great sailor Paola Pozzolini tells the story of sailing records for the Journal of Sailing. From the ships of the 1800s, to World Tours, to the craziest and most adventurous records. Starting with the one in Chichester, which is the first in the modern era, 226 days to go around the world.

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And Today, when even the most remote and wild places on the globe have become destinations for tourist travel, people look to exploit the ever-shrinking frontier of adventure. Thus was born the hunt for records on land, on water, in the air, by any energy and any means. In the last century, sailing ships and early steamships challenged each other in speed: being the fastest was a seafaring boast, but also and above all a conspicuous commercial advantage. Today, speed, which has become an end in itself, is an increasingly fascinating game. Here are the history and stories of records made with … the slowest craft in the world: sailing.

Atlantic record from west to east

The story begins with Atlantic, a legendary name. Few know that the 56-meter three-masted set the Atlantic record during an actual transatlantic race. It is the third of many challenges organized from coast to coast across the ocean since 1860. King Wilhelm II of Prussia, in 1905, puts up a gold cup as a prize for whoever covers the course between Sandy Hook, America, and Lizard Point, on the old continent, in the shortest time. On May 17, 1905, eleven yachts of British, German, and American nationality put to sea. Ten days later, the German ship, Pfeil, which is stationed at Lizard Point to take in arrivals, sees looming on the horizon the sleek silhouette of Atlantic. The 56.4-meter schooner designed by William Gardner of New York–from whose studio also came the plans for the Star, owned by Wilson Marshall–carried by America’s Cup helmsman Charlie Barr, crosses the finish line 12 days, 4 hours and 1 minute after the start, at a staggering average of 10.2 knots, winning the cup. Of course no one at that time imagines that Atlantic had established a record destined to endure for 75 years, nor that entire fortunes would be spent in dozens and dozens of fruitless attempts to break it. Charlie Barr and his schooner became a myth, and it took another mythical name, French outfielder Eric Tabarly, to beat him. In 1980, in Norfolk, Virginia, the wreck of the Atlantic, sunk near a pier. Record fever rises: the London newspaper Sunday Times and the Parisian newspaper Le Pointput $50,000 up for grabs for whoever beats the record. The 17-meter trimaran Paul Ricard, an aluminum “monster” with two small side floats fitted with foils, sets off from New York quietly. Only when victory seems within reach does Tabarly give the news the go-ahead, unleashing the media. Two giants of sailing history, the great Eric versus Charlie Barr! The gray trimaran arrives at Lizard Point in 10 days, 5 hours, and 14 minutes. Tabarly, cheered by an enthusiastic French crowd, experiences the climax of his glory. The myth is shattered.

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Doing better than Atlantic is possible. The Atlantic becomes a kind of measured base, on which the best ocean sailors are unleashed: in 1981 Mare Pajot, on his original catamaran Elf Aquitaine of 20 meters, equipped with crossbeams, a wing mast and a “balestron,” i.e., a kind of bow boom for the jib (9 days, 10 hours and 6 minutes); in 1984 Patrick Morvan, who on the cat Jet Services of 18.20 meters (8 days, 16 hours and 33 minutes): in 1986 Loie Caradec, on the maxi catamaran Royale II, of 26 meters (7 days, 21 hours and 5 minutes). In 1988, the maximum size of ocean multihulls was also increased in France to 18 meters. Philippe Poupon, who had already set the record for the East-West Atlantic crossing in the Ostar a few months earlier, decides to lash out with a new trimaran, of the “small” generation. The usual ironclad scientificity characterizes the attempt of Fleury Michon IX, perfectly prepared and ready, waiting for days for the go-ahead from the “routeur'” a decisive character in the sailing of those years until the regulations forbid it. Fleury Michon IX thus beats its predecessor. despite being a good eight meters shorter and brings the record to 7 days, 12 hours and 50 minutes. But a record is made to be broken and indeed Serge Madec, on the catamaran Jet Services V of 22.5 meters, sets the new record: 7 days, 6 hours and 30 minutes. The average is 16.4 knots. The mirage now is to go below a week. And again Serge Madec to succeed, with the same boat, in June 1990: 6 days, 13 hours and 3 minutes. Almost half the time taken by Atlantic 85 years earlier! Records seem to become the last possible adventure and new formulas are devised. It is Bruno Peyron, in 1987, in the midst of the race against time in the Atlantic by crew, who takes up the challenge dear to the pioneers: who will cover in the shortest time the New York-Lizard Point route… solo? Two brothers, Bruno and Loick Peyron, each in his own boat, each against the other, both against Charlie Barr, set off at the same time. Bruno beats everyone, completing the Atlantic crossing in 11 days and 11 hours. Three years later, Florence Arthaud on the trimaran Pierre ler, with which she will win the Route of Rum, one of the best projects of the Van Peteghem-Prevost tandem, completes the same course in 9 days and 21 hours: the new record. In 1992 Peyron tries again, on a maxi cat called Pars de la Loire-Commodore, and it’s record again: 9 days, 19 hours and 22 minutes.

In 1994, Laurent Bourgnon, on Primagaz, 18-meter, Van Peteghem-Prevost design, still one of the most competitive “tri’s,” with 7 days, 2 hours and 34 minutes of sailing, broke the record and took second place in the overall Atlantic sailing record. Nor is there any shortage, in the age of records, of those who judge the challenge between Atlantic, a massive nineteenth-century schooner, and the multihulls, superlight craft that are the result of the latest technology. And they race back against Charlie Barr on modern monohulls: over all, in July 1988, French billionaire Bernard Tapie succeeds on Phocèa, formerly Club Med owned by Alain Colas, who, succeeds in bringing the monohull record to 8 days, 3 hours and 29 minutes. The story continues: for ’97, the Atlantic Challenge Cup is on the calendar, billed as the “second edition” of the historic Atlantic…

The reverse course

The latest challenge is the “inverted” Atlantic. East to West. The route is that of the British solo Transat: the record falls as Ostar times improve. From Chichester, 40 days from Plymouth to New York in 1960, to Phillippe Poupon‘s exceptional time of 10 days, 9 hours and 15 minutes from Plymouth to Newport in 1988. That’s right, because Loick Peyron, despite having accomplished the greatest feat in the history of the Ostar, winning it twice in a row, failed to better the record.

The globe in solitude

Even in the last century, it was not uncommon to see large sailing ships entering the English Channel engaged in duels to the death, born of the wager, launched perhaps months earlier on who would make the Round-the-World Race the fastest. It was on their route, south of the “bosses,” that the pioneers ventured, solo. The first record was that of Francis Chichester, who in 1966-67 completed the round-the-world race in 226 days, stopping only once in Sydney, reopening the “impossible” routes. But if his Gypsy Moth IV is a handsome 16.20-meter laminated wooden ketch with elegant lines and impeccable rigging, the Suhaili with which Robin Knox Johnston tackled the first solo round-the-world non-stop race, the Golden Globe, in 1968, is an extremely rustic, rugged ketch built of Indian teak, bristling with metal structures that, in truth, no one would have bet on. Instead, he is the one who wins the Golden Globe, after Bernard Moitessier, who, having arrived in the South Atlantic, prefers to continue the “long route” to the Indian, gave up. Knox Johnston takes 313 days, one hour and 5′ to sail around the world nonstop. Chay Blyth, in 1971, ups the ante. After rowing across the Atlantic with John Ridgway in a 92-day odyssey of courage and endurance, perhaps jealous of the fame gained by Robin Knox Johnston, he decides to attempt a fool’s errand: a round-the-world, solo, nonstop voyage from East to West, against the prevailing winds. It takes months and months of stressful work to get to the boat launch, British Steel, a 17.75-meter, 18-ton displacement ketch, a true locomotive of the sea, and for preparations, during which time both Chay and his wife Maureen lose their jobs and are forced to sell the house to ensure a living for mother and daughter while Chay is at sea. Setting out on October 18, 1970, Blyth doggedly endures the storms and unleashed winds, the huge breakers that cause on British Steel breakdowns of all kinds and arrived at Hamble, port of departure, on August 6, 1971, after 292 days at sea. An exceptional feat, recently repeated by Englishman Mike Golding, who, in 1993, on a 60-foot monohull brought the time of the circumnavigation of the globe against the tide to 217 days, 16 hours and 32 minutes. In 1973, Alain Colas, after winning the Ostar with Manureva, formerly Pen Duick IV, the trimaran formerly owned by Tabarly, embarked on a feat at the time considered impossible: circumnavigation of the globe on a multihull. His goal is to break the Chichester record and also the clipper record, Patriarch and Cutty Sark, proving that, alone, on his small trimaran, he would be faster than the large sailing ships carried by large crews. His feat succeeded only in part. With 168 days at sea and one port of call, the great clippers remain undefeated, Chichester is “defeated” by 57 days, and, by the way, Colas is the first man in history to sail around the world alone on a multihull.

Ten years pass, during which time the Whitbread Round the World Race is born and comes of age. The tapeworm of the solo record seems dormant. It resurfaces in 1982, but in a different form. With the Boc Challenge, the record is no longer a challenge thrown down by individual daring sailors, but the rules of a race judged at the time to be insane, involving a solo round-the-world race from Newport to Newport in four legs. Philippe Jeantot, an unknown professional diver, steadily won each leg on a 17-meter, Crédit Agricole, with revolutionary features, and beats Colas by ten days, bringing the record to 159 days, 2 hours and 26 minutes. Four years later, in 1986/87, it was Jeantot again who won the second edition of the Boc Challenge and beat himself, bringing the record to 134 days at sea. Meanwhile, in 1987, a 28-year-old Philippe Monnet attacked Colas ‘ record on the trimaran Kriter Brut and Brut, 22.5 meters, and circumnavigated the globe from Brest to Brest in 129 days, 19 hours 17, beating his predecessor’s record by 40 days. In the same year, Australian John Sanders set off from Fremantle on a 14-meter sloop, Parry Endeavour, and even totaled three round-the-world, solo, non-stop round-the-world… In 1988 Olivier de Kersauson on the trimaran Un autre regard, challenges Philippe Monnet on the solo round-the-world round-the-world out race, and improves the record to 125 days, 19 hours and 32 minutes. But he is soon beaten by Titouan Lamazou, during the new and most difficult challenge, the Globe Challenge, the round-the-world race solo, non-stop. The record is lowered to just 109 days, eight hours and forty-eight minutes.

Around the world in 80 days

When the “ultimate adventures,” the Boc Challenge, the Globe Challenge become just races, sailing feels the need for new goals. Thus was born the idea, as crazy as it is fun, of a race against… Phileas Fogg, the unflappable English gentleman protagonist of Jules Verne‘s novel, “Around the World in 80 Days.”. No longer solo, but in a superfast boat carried by a crew. Launching it is French navigatorFlorence Arthaud. Many people were tempted, but in the end, in the spring of 1993, three boats embarked on the venture, practically at the same time: CharalOlivier de Kersauson‘s, Commodore Explorer by Bruno Peyron, and Enza by Peter Blake. Charal departs from Brest on January 25, 1993. The former Poulain was hastily modified: the hull length was increased to 27 meters and the wing mast to 29.80 meters. Before the start she sailed only twice, with Raul Gardini, owner of Charal. The trimaran’s performance is impressive, according to statements by the crew’s recordman, Philippe Monnet. But Kersauson ‘s dream is shattered on February 16 during a violent depression. Eight-meter-high waves, forty knots of wind: suddenly, the bow of the starboard hull breaks, and is ripped up to the height of the connecting boom. Collision against a growler, a floating object, a vibration phenomenon, structural failure? Charal, 1,100 miles south of Cape Town, repairs to South Africa. Enza takes off Jan. 31. The former Tag-Heuer by Mike Birch has been modified under the direction of its architect, Nigel Irens. The cat’s two hulls have been lengthened to nearly 26 meters and, with a mast stretched to 31 meters, she spins like a plane. The two skippers, men who have already written brilliant pages in round-the-world history, Peter Blake and Robin Knox Johnston, announce 474-mile days… But on Feb. 27, a brutal blow in the blackness of the night: a bulkhead is damaged, the port daggerboard broken, the starboard one in bad shape; there is a water way. Enza, probably, hit at full speed against a floating container on the surface of the water. Blake, too, is left with nothing but retirement. The first to take the record is therefore Bruno Peyron. His vehicle is Commodore Explorer. the Jet Services V designed by Gilles Ollier, with which Serge Madec set the latest Atlantic record. The length of the cat was increased to 25.66 meters, the mast to 31 meters. On board, Dream Team members, already protagonists of other records with the same boat, dressed as cosmonauts in survival suits, push the catamaran at insane speeds. As they Commodore advances on its course, records fall one by one: La Manica-Equator, La Manica-Capo di Buona Speranza… in all there will be 19 records won by the French team. Not even minor equipment and structure failures manage to stop their race: after 27,372 miles, Commodore Explorer crosses the finish line on the night of April 20 amid bursts of fireworks.

The magic of the record is repeated: with 79 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes and 56 seconds, an average of 345 miles per day, or 14.39 knots, Peyron and his men beat Fogg by 6 hours, 44 minutes and 4 seconds. But there are three men whose lost challenge left a bitter taste in their mouths. And they are determined to try again. A year later, two multihulls set off simultaneously from Brest to better Peyron‘s record. They are the French trimaran Lyonnaise des Eaux, formerly Charal, carried by Olivier de Kersauson, and the New Zealand cat. Enza, by Peter Blake and Robin Knox Johnston. The struggle is without history: already at the first crossing of the equator, one week after the start, Enza overtook Lyonnaise des Eaux. She beats the record, bringing it to 74 days, 22 hours and 17 minutes Olivier de Kersauson and his men are left with the satisfaction of having nonetheless bettered Peyron‘s record of 77 days, 5 hours and 3 minutes, while Peter Blake, years later, will declare that on Enza he experienced the most exciting moments of his very long sailing career.

Looking forward to the year 2000

Ocean sailors now await the year 2000 and the ultimate challenge: The Race. The race envisioned by Bruno Peyron to celebrate the advent of the second millennium will take the form of the record among records. Participating boats will be selected not by design or construction parameters, not by the number of hulls or length, but only by their speed. Test bench to be admitted among the competitors, the Atlantic record. And it will be necessary to enter the top ten. A very fast regatta, so on an unprecedented route, a round-the-world race starting from Southern Europe, probably from the Mediterranean. Non-stop. Departure date, the fateful 2001-it will really be “The Race!”, plus an exceptional sponsor: Euro Disney.

The fastest in 24 hours

Once again, it comes back to clippers. Captains of the last century resorted to the “24-hour run” to advertise the performance of their ships and win the most favorable orders. In those days, recording exactly how many miles a ship had sailed was rather haphazard, because the instruments available made both the ship’s point and the calculation of the distance actually traveled somewhat approximate. The first ship to announce that it had set a 24-hour speed record was Champion of the Seas, a 67-meter square-sailed vessel. Its captain declared 467 miles in 24 hours, at an average speed of 19.5 knots, while sailing between Liverpool, England, and Melbourne, Australia, in the South Pacific Ocean. And he was a great liar, according to historians, because for the rest of the voyage his average was 199 miles per day, or only 8 knots! The most credible of the various records claimed by sailing ships is that of the 68-meter American clipper Flying Could, on her mid-century route between New York and San Francisco via Cape Horn. On the 58th day of sailing, as she sailed up the American coast after passing Cape Horn, she sailed 374 miles in 24 hours, 19 minutes and 4 seconds at an average speed of an impressive 15.4 knots. The record is believed to be true because it is amply documented by calculations made with great care by the wife of Captain Josiah Cressy, who had even procured three stopwatches to record the times. More than a century must have passed for a modern boat to compare itself with clippers on speed in 24 hours. But everything has changed. Measurement systems, foremost among them the Argos satellite system, by automatically transmitting the boat’s position ashore, allow very precise recording of the ship’s point and actual log. Boats use state-of-the-art technology, light years away from the wooden planking of clipper ships. While sailing ships expressed their highest speeds in the stern, modern boats perform best in the crosswind. Finally, while sailing ships always sailed fully laden, carrying as much as double their displacement, contemporary boats, built of superlight materials, carry no more than the bare minimum for navigation and crew. Of course, it is a multihull that is the first to set the new record: in 1984, Mike Birch beat Josiah Cressy on Formule TAG, the 26-meter maxi cat, covering 512 miles in 24 hours, averaging 21.35 knots. Four years later Philippe Poupon is the fastest. During the Atlantic record attempt, on Fleury Michon VIII, Poupon and his crew, between June 16 and 17, recorded 517 miles in 24 hours, with an average speed of 21.5 knots. Fleury Michon, they will tell upon their arrival, surfed waves between 25 and 30 knots of speed! But the record, at present, is held by Frenchman Laurent Bourgnon, who achieved an incredible feat with a trimaran of only 18 meters, Primagaz in the North Atlantic. Between June 28 and 29, 1994, during the Atlantic record he sailed an impressive 540 miles in 24 hours at the staggering speed of 22.5 knots. An absolute record, because the fastest monohull recorded in the history of records, the WOR 60 Intrum lustitia, under the command of Englishman Lawrie Smith, during the last Whitbread Round the World Racesailed the Southern Oceans 428 miles in 24 hours at an average of 17.84 knots.

Speed records on a measured basis

The rules for entering the speed record on a measured basis of 500 meters are quite simple. The boat must have wind as its only means of propulsion; it must float on water, not ice; it must carry at least one person; it must already be in the water before the start; it must start from a standstill. The margin for setting a new record, two percent. These are the basic conditions set byISAF for setting a speed record on a measured basis. A freedom that has left room for the strangest and most imaginative design solutions by inventors of “flying boats.” The pursuit of the sailing record is a young discipline; it is about seventeen years old. In fact, it was 1969 when Sir Peter Scott, president of the then IYRU, and Bernard Hayman, editor of the British magazine Yachting World, began a lively discussion about speed records on the water set by the defender of the little America’s Cup, or by Scott himself, years earlier, but never quite believed or accepted because of the timing systems used. The discussion ended with the newspaper deciding to sponsor speed trials, while theIYRU would take charge of organizing and regulating them. Thus the first trial was born, in 1972, at Portland Harbour in southern England, a location chosen because of the extent of protected stretches of water in which it was possible to launch the boat half a kilometer, regardless of wind direction. The first place in the roll of honor goes to Crossbow, a strange asymmetrical proa, which could only sail on one edge and arrived on the starting line by rowing, reaching 26.30 knots, beating the foiler Icarus (21.5 knots), the catamaran Tornado (19.5 knots), the Trifle, a heavy Offshore trimaran (16.7 knots), and Strand Glass, designed by hydrofoil pioneer Christopher Hook, equipped with steerable foils. Subsequently, new events such as Weymouth, England, and Brest, France, emerged, which, with Portland, remained the “classics” for a long time. MeanwhileIYRU defines several record-setting classes. But for several years Crossbow remains unbeatable. In 1975 she reached 31.24 knots. The following year, carried by the same helmsman, Tim Colman, and designed by the same architect, Englishman Rod Macalpine Downie, appears in Portland Crossbow II, an astonishing 18-meter speed machine, consisting of twin asymmetrical hulls, on each of which towers a single, huge sail, with a totally unprecedented rig that places one of the two sails slightly forward of the other. The machine, in its entire life, has sailed only three hours, but it works: Crossbow II touches 36 knots, a record that remained unbeaten until 1986. The imagination runs wild. Some examples? Jacobb’s Ladder is a catamaran that uses as its sail … a kite. In 1981, the strange machine “takes off,” crew and all. In ’84, under the kite no longer floats a catamaran, but a foil-mounted ship. Fascinating idea, but, alas, not performing. At Trecobat (1982) all that remains of a boat in the traditional sense of the term is the sails and the three points of contact with the water of a contraption that looks like it was built with a meccano. Déferlante (1983) is an 8-meter cat with four masts rigged like a windsurfer, each manned by a crewman. Gamapacemaker (1984) is a rigid-wing proa, while Hydra (1984) is still a proa, but with six curved masts for a total of forty square feet of sail on 11 1/2 feet of boat. If it is these strange machines, for their originality and often their absurdity, that polarize attention, by the early 1980s it becomes clear that the future of speed is in sailboards. At first they hegemonize the 10-meter-square class, then aim for the all-time record. The surfers are the most numerous, they are professional sailors, they have organized teams behind them; supported by the booming windsurfing manufacturers, they make use of research conducted on an industrial scale.

New bases were born: Port Saint Mouis, Sainte Marie de la Mer in France; Naxos in Greece; Hwidesanda in Denmark; Maui in Hawaii; and Sotavento in the Canary Islands. It was here that on July 21, 1986, thanks in part to optimal conditions, Frenchman Pascal Maka, on a purpose-built Gaastra board, 2.6 meters long and 30 centimeters wide and weighing just six kilograms; after some 20 trials in two days, he snatched the record from Crossbow, reaching a speed of 38.86 knots. Now, the goal is to “break through” 40 knots. The very fast technological evolution of the boards hits the target. Only two years later, in Sainte Marie de la Mer, Erik Bealeexceeds 40 knots by 48 hundredths. In 1990 Pascal Maka, surpasses it with 42.91! It seems an unbeatable speed, instead Thierry Bielak arrives at 43.06, then 44.66 and finally 45.32, equal to almost 90 kilometers per hour! Also in the history of records, the star performer, capable of beating even the boards, comes from the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s Simon McKeon, a former star in the Little America’s Cup, touched the incredible speed of 46.52 knots in October 1993 on the base of Sandy Point. His revolutionary trimaran, Yellow Pages Endeavour, consists of three skids, similar to those mounted on airplanes to land on snow, linked together by a slender metal structure, overstated by a kind of rigid sloping wing–is it still a sailboat???

by Paola Pozzolini

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