Gabart turns east to finish his record run

(December 13, 2017; Day 40, 22:30 FR) – François Gabart has bypassed the Azores High to the west and made his turn to the east toward the finish between France and England to complete his attempt to set a new singlehanded round the world record. With just 1520.86 nm remaining, the skipper of the 30m MACIF trimaran has covered 595.6 nm in the past 24 hours and has increased his advance of the record pace to 2766.51 nm.

The current ETA is Sunday afternoon (Dec. 17), which will be just over 43 days.

The key news of the round the world record
Date of departure: Saturday November 4, at 10:05 (French time, UTC+1)
Ouessant-Equator passage time: 05 d 20 h 45 min
Ouessant -Good Hope passage time: 11 d 20 h 10 min
Ouessant-Cape Agulhas passage time: 11 d 22 h 20 min
Ouessant-Cape Leeuwin passage time: 19 d 14 h 10 min
Ouessant-Cape Horn passage time: 29 d 03 h 15 min
Ouessant-Equator return: 36 d 01 h and 30 min
Equator-Equator passage time: 30 d 04 h and 45 min (new single-handed record)
Cape Horn-Equator passage time: 06 d 22 h and 15 min (new reference time outright)
24-hour distance record: 851 miles (Nov 14, 2017)

Team details – Tracker – Facebook

Only three sailors to date (Francis Joyon, Ellen MacArthur, Thomas Coville) have ever held the record. After his start on November 4, to beat the record of 49 days, 3 hours, 4 minutes and 28 seconds held by Coville since December 25, 2016, Gabart will need to cross the finishing line (between Créac’h lighthouse, in Ouessant (Ushant), and the Lizard Point lighthouse in Cornwall, England) before 13.09 on December 23 (French time, UTC+1).