Something great in the works; Orange ll
Orange 2 is now 116 nm from the finish line at 50 days and 12 hours. They are "2978 nm - a week" ahead of Fossets record.
The Jules Verne trophy and the outright record will be united once again. And I dare say, in a splendid fashion.
Wouter
New record is set to 50 days 16 hours 20 minutes and 4 seconds. More than a week ahead of the old record of Fosset and the Cheyenne crew.
Cheyenne broke in 2004 the then old record of Orange by about (64-58=) 6 days and broke the unity between the Absolute record and then Jules Verne Record.
During much of the race Orange 2 looked to even break the 50 day limit and was at times 10 days ahead on the comparable Cheyenne record position. Naturally Cheyenne had a great return passage through the North Atlantic that Orange 2 didn't have. She lost 3 days on the final 3000 nm stretch, missing the 50 day threshold by a shy 17 hours. Not bad after a 29.000 nm round trip.
So a year after Cheyennes record; Bruno Peyron and the Orange 2 crew have once again united the two records and have matched Fossets/Cheyennes crew impressive record improvement day for day. Something that is harder and harder to do now that the record is so low. Orange averaged a speed of 22.2 knots over the whole trip.
Over the last two records the time needed has been dropped from 64 days to 50 days. A reduction by 28 % ! A staggering amount by anybodies standard. And they say these cats can go faster still.
Wouter
Indeed a great accomplishment. They never pushed the boat too hard, sailed smartly and fast. Well done.
Good media coverage too. It was very interesting to follow from the beginning.
remember when 80 days was unthinkable?
Nobody gives a [censored] , why?
Not good enough or what?