Over to you Gitana...

The 'Sodeboys' have lowered the Jules Verne record after outstanding seamanship in the last 72 hours. Incredible.

To the pantheon of the greats - Bruno Peyron, Peter Blake, Robin Knox-Johnston, Olivier de Kersauson, Franck Cammas, Loïck Peyron and the great Francis Joyon - add a new name as the holder of the official Jules Verne record: Thomas Coville.

After what was the most remarkable feat of seamanship and weather routing, Coville seared across the finishing line off Ushant on a line with The Lizard and lopped no less than 12 hours and 44 minutes off the 2017 benchmark of Francis Joyon’s legendary IDEC Sport . It’s a momentous moment in sailing, a monument has been toppled and it has been a joy to witness. All credit to the magnificently talented team of Coville, Benjamin Schwartz, Frédéric Denis, Pierre Leboucher, Léonard Legrand, Guillaume Pirouelle, and Nicolas Troussel. What an effort.

I was a poor dinner guest last night at a celebratory supper for my son’s university offer, sneaking out every 15 minutes to get the updated sked of Sodebo ULTIM 3 but so captivating was the challenge that I just couldn’t resist.

50 knot winds and an horrendous sea-state out to the west of the worst of it in Biscay were the ingredients that Coville had to play with. At times they were down to just the mainsail alone, reduced foiling and maximum wing inversion. A video from onboard brought it stunningly home as Thomas Coville, sat in his Recaro suspension chair to describe how tough it was. “I think we’ve broken more gear in the last 36 hours than in the entire journey…the last 36 hours have not been kind to us.”

What Thomas was alluding to was a deflector casing on one of the rudders that sheared away when a wave broke over the stern. The team had been cautiously sailing into the wind, avoiding the suicide of reaching at 90 degrees, and were nervously watching the ghost boat of IDEC Sport eating up the miles behind.

The Sodeboys had no option as they threaded through a brilliantly-called narrow passage between hellish fronts with the tail of Storm Ingrid lingering before the next isobar narrow came like forked arrows. Eventually there was enough of a window to dial away for Ushant and cross at pace to set the new record as the fastest boat around the world on the Jules Verne course at 40 days, 10 hours, and 45 minutes and 50 seconds.

This has been a remarkable journey with Sodebo smashing records at will and unleashing the enormous power of the foiling ULTIM, but as ever, to finish first, first you have to finish and it was touch and go in the North Atlantic. However, records such as Ushant to the Equator and across the Pacific Ocean whilst setting new benchmark times at Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn have meant this record-breaking was always on the cards. Coville looked shattered in the video but refreshed at victory - clean shaven, they knew that the French public would want to greet their heroes.

Sailing into Brest on Sunday morning, an armada came to greet them as the team let off the customary flares that will be on the front cover of every newspaper and yachting magazine worth their salt in the western world in days to come.

These are the new heroes of our sport who have taken a record that looked almost an impossibility, and gone to new heights. 12 hours off the record is simply massive but had the conditions been kinder in the final approaches, a day off the record and the possibility of sub 40 days was on. That will now be the target for the likes of Gitana 18 and Ferrari Hypersail with the money firmly on the Gypsy if they can hold the boat together for a lap.

That’s all for another day - and next year’s season of opportunity, the Code Green in router’s parlance, will be one to watch with awe as those mega-boats get unleashed. For now, it’s all Sodebo’s to revel in, and there’s no guarantee that this new record couldn’t last for many years to come.

It’s testament too to the ULTIM class which are undoubtedly the pinnacle of our sport offshore. They are the ocean-going AC75’s in terms of technology but it still all comes down to seamanship and knowing when to push and when to back off. Seamanship is a possibly over-looked quality in the modern-day, yet what those guys went through, and the logical manner in which they approached it with safety first at all times, is exemplary.

Look at this from yesterday’s report: “The starboard rudder sleeve broke yesterday. The rough seas proved too much for the sleeve in the early afternoon. The incident could have affected the rudder and steering system, but fortunately the robustness of the systems allowed the steering system to remain intact. Only the rudder trim tab is lost. In the evening the sleeve detached from the boat, seemingly without causing any further complications. A minor incident, therefore, as we approach the finish line. The technical team remained particularly vigilant regarding this issue, and the crew could only assess the damage, as any intervention would have been pointless or dangerous in these conditions.”

Heroes all. Sailing owes a huge debt of gratitude and wonder at what Sodebo ULTIM 3 just achieved and the style and Gallic charm that they exuded over these last 40 days. It puts so much into perspective of just how at the mercy we all are of Mother Nature and for those brave souls that undertake the ultimate challenge, just how brave they are and how magnificent they are as seaman and racing sailors. Genuinely Thomas Coville is a hero for our time.

Outstanding. Remarkable. Bravo. Vive La France.

Magnus Wheatley