Francis Joyon smashes the tea clipper record

One of the oldest and most richly storied of all sailing records was smashed in February by Francis Joyon. The French sailor, leading a crew of four, including his son, Corentin, took four days off the Hong Kong-london time. This historic record dates back to the tea clipper ships, which raced to get a premium price for the year’s tea crop.

Joyon set a new time of 31d 23h, several days faster than cargo ships take going through the Panama Canal, and less than a third of the 99 days it took the clipper ships to sail the same route in their most famous race of 1866.

Joyon brought his maxi trimaran IDEC Sport upriver into the Thames on 19 February, after bettering the time set in 2018 by Giovanni Soldini in the modified MOD70 Maserati. Joyon is a master of the ocean record, and holds a fistful including the ridiculously hard to beat solo round the world record.

The crew’s average speed from Hong Kong, over 15,873 miles was 20.7 knots.

Their race was challenging to the final miles, and an exhausted Joyon admitted that a dicey approach through the Dover Strait and long beat into the Thames Estuary pushed the crew to the limit with over 60 tacks. Having run out of diesel and without enough sun to charge via solar panels, the big trimaran went through the busiest part of the voyage with no functioning radar, AIS or nav computer.

“We had to tack all the way into the Thames, so it was very tiring and there was not one minute of rest,” explained Joyon, “and nothing was working on board.

“About five miles from the finish, there was a cargo ship alongside us and there was no space to tack, so we had to gybe and during the gybe there was maybe 20cm between us. The cargo ship did not stop. It was very, very dangerous.”