Here is the powerful-looking Groupama 3, the 105ft maxi trimaran built to sail round the world in under 50 days. French multihull hero and national heartthrob Franck Cammas and his crew went on standby yesterday in Cadiz for the first part of his campaign: an attempt to break the Route of Discovery record to San Salvador in the new giant.

Basically this a training record and a positioning delivery for the Transatlantic record but Cammas’s bash at Steve Fossett’s 9-day record in PlayStation will give some indication of the potential of this new beast and what the talented Cammas can do with her. The ultimate goal is make history by knocking back Bruno Peyron’s time of 50 days.

Peyron told me last year he thought his maxi cat Orange 2 could go round quicker, but shortly afterwards Orange withdrew from backing world-girlding record-breakers to sponsor youth sailing through French sailing schools. So standby for the new pretender?