Orange II, Bruno Peyron’s maxi catamaran, has retired from the Jules Verne with technical problems, after just one day at sea. At 0600 GMT yesterday morning, as the boat was doing more than 30kts, a technical incident occurred onboard. After consulting his crew, Peyron decided to turn back and head for Brittany.

It is still unclear what exactly happened but Peyron, talking from the boat yesterday, believed the problem was important enough quit. He said: “What happened does not allow us to continue racing, and we’re still close enough to home to come back quickly, have this problem fixed, and take another start. The real concern is that we were sailing in exceptional sea and wind conditions, downwind, and now we’ll have to come back upwind against 35 knots of breeze.”

Since her departure from the Ushant ? Lizard starting line at 0841 on Wednesday team Orange had achieved an outstanding first day at sea. They covered more than 580 miles covered during the first 24 hours with average speeds close to 25 knots.