big gain AND enormous loss!

joyon-cooking, originally uploaded by lzp.

Francis crossed the line at the Lizard (British Cornwall) today at 12:44'03' GMT, establishing a new Atlantic Solo record after 6 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 37 sec at sea (awaiting WSSRC ratification - business as usual)

This reference time is better (by roughly 9 hours) than Serge Madec's performance (fully crewed on Jet Services V in 1991), which held 11 years only to be beaten by PlayStation in 2001 in fantastic fashion.

Compared to Laurent Bourgnon's record (previous solo reference time, estd. in 1994), Francis has a 22 hrs 33 min and 5 sec. advantage.

He's now heading back home towards southern Brittany (La Trinité), where we'll be meeting him tomorrow morning (Thursday July 7).

"Big guy Francis" rules !!!! - Jocelyn Blériot

7/6/05

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JOYON'S HISTORIC IDEC FEARED LOST - JOYON SAFE At 0100hrs this morning Francis Joyon was returning IDEC to La Trinite sur Mer when she ran aground at Pointe De Penmarc'H. Francis - exhausted after his epic transatlantic record is believed to have fallen asleep. IDEC struck the rocks and in strong onshore wind and with a big swell running it appears impossible to have been able to extract her. Joyon was taken to hospital for a check up but left quickly to help salvage the yacht. However by 0700hrs today he said "The boat is on the rocks and I fear that it is impossible to save it. It is embedded by the stem. The mast fell one hour ago and the boat is breaking up little by little. We are currently trying, with a high-speed motorboat from the SNSM [French equivalent to UK's RNLI] to release it from the rocks, but I fear that she will end up in 1000 pieces, the swell in particular makes the operation very difficult"

photo and txt courtesy of www.sailinganarchy.com