Loick Peyron’s giant 140ft trimaran Banque Populaire has set a new record for the Fastnet Race, smashing the previous record that he set in 1999 by more than 7 hours. (Subject to ratification).

Banque Populaire finished the 605nautical mile race at 19.48.46 BST, 32 hours 48min 46seconds after their start in Cowes at 1100 on Sunday 14 Aug. According to our calculations this would equate to an average speed of 18.44knots, more than five knots better than Peyron’s previous best which was set aboard the 60ft trimaran Fujicoulour II which averaged 14.96knots for the trip around the rock and back.

Hot on Banque Populaire’s heels is Gitana, another trimaran but at 77ft LOA half the length of the monster trimaran yet also setting a blistering pace and at just 20 miles astern of Banque Pop and travelling at 25 knots, was expected to finish around an hour behind.

And that’s not the end of the story. Behind Gitana are the two brand new MOD70 trimarans, two of the first of the new one design multihulls that will race around the world, they also look likely to finish this evening and break Peyron’s 1999 record. Of the two, Race for Water (SUI) looks likely to take the MOCRA class victory on handicap.

But no matter how quickly any of the multihulls complete the race, none are eligible for the Fastnet Trophy which is only open to monohulls.

Here, despite a slow start for Rambler 100, when she split a headsail on the way out of the Solent, the 100ft canting keel master blaster looks like she could break the monohull record which was set by Mike Slade’s Leopard in 2007 with a time of 1 day 20 hours and 18 minutes.

Having rounded the Fastnet Rambler’s crew put their foot to the floor and sat at 24 knots on the beam reach home. To break the monohull record Rambler will need to finish on Tuesday morning before 0718 BST.

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