Article by: James Scanlon

Thomas Coville has bested the previous single handed round the world record in the high performance 105 foot trimaran, SOBEDO. Colville’s time of 49 days, three hours and 10 minutes improved upon Francis Joyon’s 2004 time in MAXI catamaran, IDEC by 8 days and 10 hours. Impressively, the time logged by Coville is the third best of all crew configurations.

Coville had good luck with weather in the Atlantic, experiencing low sea state, favorable angles and strong flow throughout the sail. Colville’s good fortune continued throughout the attempt as he enjoyed a once in a decade, albeit extreme conditions for a round the world sail.

After taking an unconventionally southern route through the Indian ocean, completing the crossing in 8 days, 12 hours, Coville continued into the Pacific where he was met with challenging conditions, 30-40 knot winds and 10 meter seas. Sailing much of the race with a three reefed main and a J3, Coville had to stay on deck, in the weather, to sail the boat through the often overpowered conditions. With the help of his weather router Jean Luc Nélias, Coville picked his way through the southern ice before riding favorable tailwinds north through the atlantic, back to Ushant .

Coville’s accomplishment is especially triumphant in light of his three previous attempts on Joyon’s record, all of which ended in breakdown or narrow misses of the record.

Coville’s trimaran, SOBEDO, originally owned by Oliver de Kersauson was almost completely revamped by himself and his designers, VLAP, to feature foils from USA 17, Oracle’s 2010 America’s cup winner, in addition to other modifications to the boats original platform. The hull was also outfitted with GORI folding propellers. Compared with traditional fixed propellers and competing folding props, GORI Race creates zero drag versus 3 to 10 Newton for competing folding props and up to 200 Newton for fixed props. On average, this advantage allows for an additional knot of boat speed, all though in the case of Coville’s blistering 23 knot average speed, the advantage was likely much more significant. Even using the conservative figure of a 1 knot increase in boat speed over the course of Coville’s 27,325 nautical mile course, the increased speed would account for a 2 day, 2 hour time improvement. In his previous completed attempts, similar windows of time were the difference between the record and failure.

The Multihulls competing in this years Bermuda race also choose to utilize the advantages offered by GORI.
An example of the importance of small boost in boat speed, such as allowed for GORI propellers, played out in the multihull division. Jason Carroll’s Elvis turned a small but contested lead into a horizon job by narrowly escaping an expanding high pressure which captured the rest of the fleet. All though the other boats in the multihull division were also using GORI three blade propellers, this scenario is a classic example of how a small advantage in boat speed which results in a small lead can often evolve into an expansive lead in sailing.

Photo Courtesy of CatSailingNews.com