Ellen MacArthur and her super-tri B&Q crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope at 17:56 GMT on Friday, 17 December 2004, setting a new solo fastest time of 19 days, 9 hours and 46 minutes, taking 10 hours and 45 minutes off Francis Joyon’s time.

Francis Joyon set an Ushant to Cape of Good Hope time of 19 days, 20 hours, 31 minutes on 12th December 2003 during his successful solo world record.

Ellen reported crossing the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope at 18 29 degrees east in 40ft seas. Setting a new fastest solo time is a second speed ‘benchmark’ for MacArthur, after setting a faster time to the Equator 10 days ago. It is also worth making a comparison to a couple of the recent ‘fully-crewed’ round the world Jules Verne record attempts, that saw the crew of the 110ft maxicat ‘Orange’ take 18 days and 18 hours to reach the same point in 2002 and in 1994 the crew of ENZA took 19 days and 17 hours on their successful Jules Verne bid.

Ellen MacArthur solo times

Equator 8 days, 18 hours, 20 minutes (0230 GMT 7.12.04)

Cape of Good Hope 19 days, 9 hours, 46 minutes (17:56 GMT 17.12.04)