Feature

Lending Club 2 claims Los Angeles to Honolulu outright record

Published on July 19th, 2015

Honolulu, HI (July 19, 2015) – The 105-foot VPLP-designed trimaran Lending Club 2 has smashed the 2215 nm Los Angeles to Honolulu outright record. Co-skippers Renaud Laplanche and Ryan Breymaier have posted a time of 03:18:00:09, improving on the existing record by over one day (subject to ratification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council).

Lending Club 2 had been entered in the biennial Transpac Race 2015 in hopes of setting a new race record and outright record, but when the forecast was deteriorating for their July 18 start, the team left on July 15 to take advantage of the superior weather window and go for the outright record alone.

Their arrival today over the course averaged 24.61 knots and 590.6 nm per day. Click here for arrival video.

The existing records were:

Race record: 05:09:18:26, set in July 1997 by Bruno Peyron (FRA) and crew on the 86-foot catamaran Explorer.
Outright record: 04:19:31:37, set in November 2005 by Olivier de Kersauson (FRA) and crew on the 110-foot trimaran Geronimo.

Laplanche and Breymaier had attempted to set a new race record during the 2013 Transpac, joining John Sangmiester on the modified ORMA 73 trimaran Tritium Racing. However, they were hindered by debris as large as tree trunks and telephone poles thought to be left by the 2011 Japanese tsunami, and arrived in Hawaii just two hours outside the record.

“There were at least six major impacts we had with debris out there,” said Breymaier about the 2013 race. “In all, I think we probably spent about 10 hours working with the damage on the centerboard.”

Lending Club 2, launched in 2006 as Groupama 3 and later rebranded as Banque Populaire VII, had been chartered by Laplanche for a record-breaking program in 2015. The team has successfully set a new Cowes to Dinard outright record and Newport to Bermuda outright record, and now appear to have claimed the Los Angeles to Honolulu outright record.

Following this latest record attempt, the boat will be transferred to Francis Joyon who will seek to set a new outright crewed round the world record (Jules Verne Trophy), which is currently held by Loïck Peyron with a time of 45:13:42:53. Joyon will be receiving the boat in mid-September, and following a re-fit, plans to go on stand-by for the Jules Verne Trophy in early November.

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