Orange II Record Notes
Orange II’s time 50 Days 16 Hours 20 Minutes and 4 Seconds 22.2 knots average an improvement of 7 days 17h over Cheyenne’s record.
That 22.2 knot average is nearly double that of the 11.35 posted by Explorer the 1st board to post a sub 80 day planetary lap.
1st Under 80 days: Explorer in 79 days
1st Under 70 days: Orange in 64 days
1st Under 60 days: Cheyenne in 58 days
1st Under 50 days: Still for the taking
“Olivier de Kersauson: “The hurdle of fifty days is now within reach, showing the huge amount of progress that our sport makes each year. No other racing sport can claim to have made this progress, as each new generation of boat pushes back the limits still further.”
This quote is one of the reasons I won’t join the chorus of ‘this record will stand for years’. We heard this just last year after Cheyenne’s record voyage. de Kersauson is correct to note the lineage of recent progress. Next up? Franck Cammas on a new trimaran
Orange II was faster than Cheyenne on all portions of the course except the equator to the finish. Cammas says of his new tri: “our approach has led us to designing a boat with extreme performance potential on the sail down and back up the Atlantic.” The return from the equator is often the toughest with an emphasis on this leg being appropriate.
Ultramarathon runner Dean Karnazes says he has a hard time saying he wins. Rather he says,”I prefer to say I survived the fastest.”
Apropos to sailing records? Ellen Macarthur’s voyage being solo had survival elements. Orange II collided with a whale damaging a rudder.
Perhaps the round the world record holders should be called ‘fastest survivors’?
An interesting message from Jacques Vincent:
On board Doha 2006, we followed the Orange II course well by asking to
us whether early or late they would slip on a weather banana peel,
this famous calms or better, pétole, which would have allowed to all
the crew a good bath as diverting as necessary after so many days at
sea, and a few well deserved days of “idleness”. But their road was
without respite seems it, and at the present time, with Damian, Brian
and Fraser, my fellow-members on Cheyenne last year, today with me on
board Doha 2006 we benefited from our last hours of champions.
Cheyenne is definitively a boat of another century. Our record was a
miracle, as well human as “divine” (weather not being a science). That
of Orange II resembles a conquest of modern times, the revenge of
Goliath, the return of César… Goodbye Cheyenne which had renovated
the record of ten days. Cheer with Orange II and its crew which placed
the so high bar.”
Nope no weather banana peel. Vincent has now gained and won the round the world record 2 times. Cheyenne a boat of another (previous) century. Remember Cheyenne was the 1st of the new maxi cats. Seems to give Cheyenne more luck credits than Orange II.
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