Spindrfit 2 : Americas Discovery Route Record Attempt

Dona Bertarelli & Yann Guichard continue full schedule on their Spindrift project. Hope we can see them along the Peyron bros in next A Cup. —
Live Tracking Here – Full Report at spindrift-racing.com/

The Route of Discovery of the Americas : the route of Christopher Columbus

The Route of Discovery was founded in 1984 as a crew race from Cadiz to Santo Domingo. It is a similar route to that travelled by Columbus from August 3 to October 12, 1492, which took him from from Palos de la Frontera (near Cadiz in Spain) and Guanahani (re-named San Salvador by its discoverer), via the Canary Islands. The maxi trimaran, Spindrift 2, the largest racing multihull in the world, is trying to beat the record time* for the Route of Discovery (7 days, 10 hours, 58 minutes and 53 seconds), set by Franck Cammas in 2007 on the maxi Groupama 3. Spindrift 2 can wait until the end of October for a suitable weather window to open and allow the start off Cadiz, for a 3,884-mile Atlantic sprint, which, even according to co-skipper, Yann Guichard, is “treacherous”.
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The history of the Route of Discovery:
In the footsteps of Christopher Columbus
The Genoese navigator left Palos de la Frontera in Andalusia, near Cadiz, on August 3, 1492 with three ships: two caravels , the Pinta and the Niña and a nave, the Santa Maria, and no more than 90 crew. This small fleet stopped for nearly a month in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to avoid the Portuguese who were sailing in the Azores area.

A race the a record…
It was the 26-metre catamaran, Philippe Poupon’s Fleury Michon III, who won the first edition in 1984, in 14 days 14 hours and 49 minutes, in an edition in which 30 teams took part. The second edition in 1988 was won by Jet Services V catamaran Serge Madec. But people who really established the route as a record were Grant Dalton and Bruno Peyron in 2000, onboard the catamaran, Club Med, in preparation for the round the world race, The Race. The American hunter of records, Steve Fossett, improved the record by more than one day in 2003 with his maxi catamaran, PlayStation in 9 days, 13 hours, 30 minutes and 18 seconds. In May 2007, Franck Cammas and the crew of the maxi trimaran, Groupama 3, set the current record of 7 days 10 hours, 58 minutes and 53 seconds at an average speed of 21.70 knots.

* The boat position is sent every hour to the WSSRC, the organisation that validates records. It will decide the legitimacy of the course and will confirm any 24-hour speed records, which are always possible on a long journey.