If the helmsman drops below 33 knots, he's screwed up

 

I’ve just checked the Groupama site and Franck Cammas’s giant trimaran is screaming along at over 37 knots on day 2 of his attempt to break the transatlantic record.

This is now a blink-or-you’ll-miss it challenge, and if Cammas and his crew pull it off it will be all over this weekend. But I will take a punt and say I think Bruno Peyron’s record in Orange 2 will stand, if only because the percentage improvement that’s possible is now so narrow.

When they set the record, Peyron’s crew used to say that if the helmsman dropped below 33 knots he’d screwed up. They weren’t joking.

Groupama 3 will have to keep up an average of over 28 knots to beat this.