Francis Joyon aboard the 90ft trimaran IDEC (left/red) is monopolising on the fantastic 25-knot south-westerly reaching conditions and has built up a 235-mile lead over Laurent Bourgnon’s outright singlehanded transatlantic record.

Joyon who set sail from New York last Thursday has already broken the 24-hour speed record covering 543 miles at an average speed of 22.62 knots, and is now set to break Bourgnon’s record Transatlantic record. In order to beat the record which has stood since June 1994 Joyon must reach The Lizard before 11h 16m 8 secs GMT on 7 July.

As Christian Fevrier points out however, if Joyon makes it within the time he will not delete Bourgnon from the WSSRC record list because, with a boat that’s 50 per cent longer than Bourgnon’s Primagaz, he is competing in a different category. Fevrier said: “For obvious reasons and maintain the interest for the 60 footer monohulls and multihulls, the WSSRC has created two categories: one for boats up to 60ft loa, and another for yachts above this length. So EDEC will be classified in this second category.

“Same classification applies for the 24-hour record. So the slightly better 543 miles achieved by Joyon, yet to be ratified, will not delete the standing Bourgnon’s 540-mile record.”

Ellen MacArthur is also currently preparing to have another crack at the Singlehanded Transatlantic record and should be on standby in New York from 1 September. According to MacArthur a two-month window of opportunity has been allocated to take advantage of the best possible weather system.