Richomme drives towards a new 24-hour record with Paprec Arkéa

Exactly a week after Nico Lunven (HOLCIM-PRB) set a new solo 24 hours monohull distance record, Paprec Arkéa solo skipper Yoann Richomme dramatically bettered that mark this morning, before slowing as he pushed into the Doldrums. 

Richomme sailed a distance of 551.84 nautical miles in the 24 hours (the world record is subject to verification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council) up to 0830hrs this morning in near perfect conditions. If ratified, it would be fully 5.24 miles ahead of the mark set by Lunven.

Standing on the deck of Paprec Arkéa with his shirt off because of the heat and humidity, and making only a few knots of boatspeed in the llight winds of the Doldrums, Richomme told the Vendée Globe LIVE! English show today, with a grin: “It was pretty unexpected because the run in between the ridge and the ITCZ (doldrums) has been quite short and so I was not even looking at beating the record because I thought it would be less than 500 miles. But apparently it was enough and it is my main pleasure is to beat Nico Lunven in life (laughs).

"It is good, I really pushed hard, I wanted to catch the guys in front because I am really afraid of a breakaway near Brazil and so I thought I could cover some miles on the day and it worked out. It is not paying off too much right now as I am stuck in a light spot and have been here for three hours doing three or four knots. And so the thing is maybe if there was a hundred or so miles of breeze it could have been a good number of miles more.”

How long will this record stand?

“If we do get into the right conditions on a flat sea I think even the crewed record is doable because I don’t think it matters too much if you are solo or crewed... But you have to have the right conditions so let us see if that happens. I feel most of these boats have these kind of speeds now.”

(Based on a story on www.vendeeglobe.com)