The crew on the IDEC SPORT maxi-trimaran moved into the Southern Hemisphere at 0318 hrs UTC on Wednesday night. It took Joyon and his men 5 days, 18 hours and 59 minutes to sail from Ushant to the Equator, which was two hours and 59 minutes more than the title-holder, Banque Populaire V. Francis Joyon refers to this as a decent time and says they are on track. The Doldrums seem to have become too attracted to the big red and white multihull and does not want to let her go, as the crew has been stuck in there now for more than 24 hours.
After fouir excellent days in the trade winds with peak speeds of 40 knots off the Cape Verde Islands, IDEC SPORT has since Tuesday evening been at speeds unworthy of even monohulls, and they have only sailed just over 200 miles in the past 24 hours. In moderate winds and a confused NW’ly air stream followed by calms, Joyon, Surtel, Pella, Stamm, Audigane and Gahinet are trying to find a way to get to the trade winds in the south. At this point in the record attempt, Banque Populaire V, a long way west of IDEC SPORT’s position was back up to 25 knots. The advantage that IDEC SPORT had has now become a loss of over 40 miles this morning and this is likely to grow until Joyon and his men go on the port tack in the trade winds.
