[brian eiland]

Rival camps are tuning up for the Jules Verne Trophy, the all-out, fully crewed round the world record. It is currently held by Bruno Peyron and crew in the maxi catamaran Orange 2 and stands at 50 days 16 hours.

The latest two challengers, Groupama 3 and Banque Populaire V (BPV), could potentially reduce that time by as much as 10%, slashing it to below 45 days in optimal weather conditions.

Fresh from setting a new North Atlantic record this summer and a breathtaking new 24-hour record of 908 miles, Banque Populaire is the first to tee up by announcing their crew and plan in Paris today.

In the other corner is Franck Cammas's 104ft trimaran Groupama 3, which was 2,000 miles ahead of the record time last year when the forward port beam cracked and the boat capsized and broke up off New Zealand.

Since then the floats have been rebuilt and strengthened and Cammas went on to break the Atlantic record this summer, holding it briefly before it was snatched away by Banque Populaire V.

Although smaller, this boat is light and powerful and showed during her Atlantic record that it is faster when the winds ease below 20 knots, whereas the big BPV will come into its own in being able to sustain high speeds in the windy, surfing conditions of the Southern Ocean.

Both boats are well prepared for the attempt: each has covered around 15,000 miles in the Med and Atlantic this season. The giant BPV has done more testing, trialling and tweaking since her launch last year than any previous Jules Verne contender.

So, if everything goes to plan, the record should fall to one or other this winter. But to smash Orange II's record, they would need the sort of made-to-measure weather experienced by Bruno Peyron (and, for that matter, solo sailor Francis Joyon), especially in the Atlantic.

The margins are narrowing, while the ratio of successes to failures remains low. Of the 19 Jules Verne attempts since 1993, 14 have failed.

Whatever spin you put on it the statistics coldly state that this venture has a 1 in 4 chance of success.

Elaine Bunting's blog (Yachting World)

[K1W1]

Hi,

Sounds exciting.

If you can still edit this can you correct the typo in the title?

(Done by Mod)

[brian eiland]

They're off...at least Groupama is in a bid to break the record.

Here is the website to follow her progress

http://www.cammas-groupama.com/en/

[brian eiland]

GROUPAMA 3 MAKE NEW REFERENCE TIME OVER EQUATOR
(November 11, 2009; 17:26 UTC) --

As Franck Cammas and his nine member crew onboard the 105-foot Groupama 3 pursue the Jules Verne Trophy, a fully crewed round the world record attempt under sail, they have already reached a milestone. After 5 days 15 hours and 23 minutes, Groupama 3 has crossed the equator, establishing a new reference time over this stretch of the course between Ushant and the line marking the switch of hemispheres.

In the middle of Tuesday night, the crew was able to observe that the clouds and squalls were astern of Groupama 3: the clouds were disappearing from the sky, the stars were out, and a crescent of moon was dimly lighting a clear horizon. They'd ploughed through the Doldrums at an average of over fifteen knots, which remains an amazing performance.

Franck Cammas and his men certainly weren't sparing of their efforts though as they tried to extract themselves as quickly as possible from this Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, on a mission to drive down towards the equator, which they crossed at 07:13 UTC. As such, they have a lead of one day, eleven hours thirty three minutes over the Jules Verne Trophy record time set by skipper Bruno Peyron and his crew in 2005 on Orange 2

[brian eiland]

Lest its forgotten this is the vessel that lost an outer hull and capsized off of NZ last year while attempting this same record:

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/ge...d-attempt.html

[e55fan]

Appears they have had significant damage and have had to pull out of the record attempt again.

Too bad. these tri's really are something.

Damage, destination Cape Town
Jules Verne Trophy 2009 - 2010
It was at 1216 UT on Monday 16th November, that the skipper of Groupama 3, Franck Cammas, called the Jules Verne Trophy team to inform them that an aft beam bulkhead had broken, leading to serious damage to the float. Despite the storm, Groupama 3 is slowly making headway towards Cape Town some 1,700 miles away (3,000 km) and is therefore abandoning this particular Jules Verne Trophy...

http://www.cammas-groupama.com/en/co...s_verne_32.jsp

[PropBet]

Crap! I was really hoping to see these guys succeed.

[e55fan]

I was too. They really are spectacular boats. the sustained speeds that they are achieving are unreal