Francis Joyon, the reluctant hero, looked slightly nonplussed at the hoopla that greeted his arrival in Brest this morning. His solo record of 57 days and 13 hours not only beats Ellen’s solo record by 14 days, but is the second fastest ever. Joyon’s average speed round the world in his 97ft trimaran IDEC is an incredible 19 knots.

If the feat seems superhuman, the man himself emphatically does not. Joyon waved shyly at a crowd of several hundreds, small by French sailing standards, and seemed faintly embarrassed by the attention. Joyon is famously a quiet-spoken man who says little, preferring to let his actions speak for themselves. With this record, and his natural reticence, he has become the natural successor to France’s most revered and private sailor, Eric Tabarly.

Read more about the record, and how Ellen MacArthur may be thinking about recapturing it, in Elaine Bunting’s blog