Spindrift primed for record bid

Yann Guichard and a 12-strong crew on maxi trimaran Spindrift may well be speeding down the Atlantic by the time you read this, hoping to be third time lucky in cracking one of sailing’s hardest records. The Franco-swiss team was on standby late last year waiting for a favourable northerly to send them on their bid to claim the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest time non-stop round the world.

Repaired and fitted with a new rig, Spindrift will be trying to beat the record set by Francis Joyon in 2017, of 40d 23h.

For this attempt, Guichard has drawn a crew of a broad range of ages and a mix of Olympic sailors, multihull experts and round the world old hands, with two ‘Anglo Saxons’ among the numbers – solo sailor turned multihull protégée Sam Goodchild and VOR bowman Jack Bouttell.

A record attempt last January by the team, backed by Swiss businesswoman Dona Bertarelli, had to be abandoned when the 40m trimaran was dismasted while sailing out to the start line. The rig came down in winds of 15-18 knots despite being conservatively sailed with two reefs in the main and smaller J3 headsail.

In 2016, Spindrift completed the 29,000-mile circumnavigation only to miss out by two days. They clocked up a record time to Cape Horn but were then thwarted by headwinds and calms. It was a ‘long, laborious’ passage that Dona Bertarelli, who was one of the crew, described as like ‘time standing still’.