Sailing Pictures
100 4972
|
 |
- French adventurer Bruno Peyron is on standby for the "window of
opportunity" to break American Steve
 Fossett's North Atlantic crossing
record (from New York to The Lizard, in England)
- Fossett's record is 4 days, 17h, 28 minutes and 06 seconds. (established
in 2001)
- By comparison, a cruise ship takes 6 days to make the 3100 nautical mile
Transatlantic voyage
- Only Peyron has tackled this record since Fawcett's '01 accomplishment;
in
2004, he missed the record by a mere 31 minutes
- Peyron will use as his weapon the giant maxi-catamaran Orange II
- The boat is longer (121 ft.) and nearly as wide (59 ft.) as a tennis court
- It stands, with its rotating wing mast, as tall as the Arc de Triomphe
- It sails downwind with 5X more sail area than a Volvo Open 70
- The best weather would be a low pressure system, with constant wind at
27-35 knots (and no waves), that Orange II could ride -- without
interruption -- across the entire ocean
- To beat Fossett's record, a boat speed average of 26 knots must be
maintained at all times
- Peyron holds the 24-hour speed record (established in 2004) aboard Orange
II, having averaged 29.42 knots.
- Peyron holds the around-the-world speed record (established in 2005)
aboard Orange II (50 d, 16 h, 20 min, 4 sec, established in 2005)
- Orange II has been designed in such a way that it "flies a hull" in
only
14 knots of wind
- Upwind in a 20-knot wind, Orange II sails along briskly at above 20 knots.
In those conditions, the deck (and crew abovedecks) is exposed to the
equivalent of a 40-knot apparent wind.
- Peyron is in France, due back in Newport the week of June 12.
- Orange II is at the Newport Shipyard, ready to go
- Peyron currently is in "Code Red" standby mode.
Code Red: No potential start within 7 days (no obvious weather window in sight) Code
Orange: Potential start within 6 days (crew is alerted) Code Green: Potential
start within 48 hours (crew is on the way to Newport)
- It will take Orange II approximately 10 hours to get to its New York
starting point (Ambrose Light) for the record attempt.
- Orange II is sponsored by the global integrated operator France Telecom,
which announced last week that it is uniting all of its commercial offers
under the Orange brand.
|
