Two capes and two new reference times

This twelfth day at sea has enabled the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild to secure her first accolades in her Jules Verne Trophy record attempt. After setting sail from Ushant on 10 January at 01h33’46’’ UTC, the six sailors passed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope this Thursday morning at 11h27’46’’ UTC after 11 days 9 hours and 53 minutes at sea. In so doing, they improved on the reference time set by the crew on Banque Populaire in 2012 in the Jules Verne Trophy by 11 hours and 55 minutes. It’s also worth noting that until this 21 January, the outright record for this section of the course was held by a solo sailor with a time of 11 days 20 hours and 10 minutes. The latter was François Gabart who, in 2017, posted a staggering performance to the tip of South Africa.
Some four hours later, at 15h37’53’’ UTC, Franck Cammas, Charles Caudrelier, David Boileau, Erwan Israël, Yann Riou and Morgan Lagravière repeated this performance at Cape Agulhas, arriving in the Indian Ocean with the best reference time and, most importantly, a lead of 1 day 7 hours and 19 minutes over the current Jules Verne Trophy holder.

“Less than 11 days 10 hours to get to Good Hope is great going, which means that it was a favourable weather window and we were right to snap it up! That said, we still feel like we lost some time along the way, especially in the doldrums, but we’re happy to be here and to be posting these speeds. Now comes the hard part,” admits Franck Cammas to Yann Riou’s camera.

In at the deep end in the Southern Ocean

The Maxi Edmond de Rothschild is navigating the first miles of her career in the Southern Ocean, as is the case for David Boileau and Morgan Lagravière, who are tackling their first passage across the Indian Ocean. However, the crew is all too aware, this is where things start to get serious! The first reason for this is that over this long section of the course in the Southern Ocean, Francis Joyon and his crew were brilliant and clearly broke new ground in relation to the Trophy thanks to a trajectory bordering on perfection; namely 5 days 21 hours to devour the Indian Ocean and then 7 days 21 hours till they made Cape Horn… The second reason is that the men of Gitana Team are plunging down towards latitudes which are never a trivial matter.

By way of a tribute to Benjamin de Rothschild, our dear departed owner

Since last Friday, Gitana Team, the offshore racing stable he founded with his wife Ariane de Rothschild in 2000, has been mourning the loss of its owner. In our own way, from the sea he was so fond of, we wanted to pay him one last tribute. These new reference times, the best of all time over this section of the course, we dedicate to him and offer them to Ariane de Rothschild and her four daughters in his honour.

Jules Verne Trophy Info