Around-the-World Sailboat Race : Jeantot Is the First to Reach Rio

French solo yachtsman Philippe Jeantot sailed his 60-foot cutter Credit Agricole III into Rio de Janeiro Monday in 15 knots of breeze to win in record time the third leg of the BOC Challenge solo race around the world.

Jeantot crossed the line at 1:47 p.m. PST to break his own record for the course by 11 days, four hours. Jeantot set the earlier record while winning the 1982-83 BOC race.

Jeantot sailed the 8,300-mile leg from Sydney, Australia, around Cape Horn to Rio in 36 days 17 hours 46 minutes 53 seconds, averaging 216 miles a day, race officials said.

Fellow Frenchman Titouan Lamazou, aboard Ecureuil d’Aquitaine, was only 20 miles behind when Jeantot finished and was expected to cross by nightfall.

Credit Agricole III’s elapsed time for the three legs completed is 107 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes, keeping him in first place on the 27,000-mile race.

Lead American in the solo race is Guy Bernardin, of North Kingstown, R.I., whose yacht Biscuits Lu is 920 miles behind the leader, making him fourth overall in the race.

Mike Plant, of Jamestown, R.I., currently leads Class II aboard Airco Distributor, and is expected to finish in nine days.

Sixteen yachtsmen remain in the race, which began in Newport, R.I., on Aug. 30 with 25 sailors. One of the sailors is believed lost at sea.

The fourth and final leg, about 5,200 miles, will start April 11. The first boats are expected to cross the finish line in Newport in early May.

Lamazou managed to stay close to the leader despite worry about damage below the waterline caused by hitting a submerged object off Cape Horn while doing 14 knots.

The impact dislodged battery boxes that were mounted over the keel. Lamazou at first thought he hit an uncharted rock but now suspects that he hit a whale. He must pump more than two hours daily to remove water that’s coming into the boat through a crack in his hull.

Alert nevertheless, Lamazou chose a more easterly course than Jeantot. The move cut more than 80 miles off the lead Jeantot had built since they rounded Cape Horn.

Jean-Yves Terlain, meanwhile, was in third place aboard UAP-Pour Medicins Sans Frontieres.

Still unknown are details of the injury Terlain suffered to his hand that caused him to drop suddenly from among the front-runners two weeks ago.

John Martin, of South Africa, took Tuna Marine around Cape Horn with naturalized-American Guy Bernardin aboard Biscuits Lu hard on his stern.

But then Martin lost ground to Bernardin when he pulled into the lee of Deceit Island, 10 miles from Cape Horn, to make repairs on a running backstay, a mast support cable. The rigging failure knocked him out of the lead three weeks ago.

Both men went through the Le Maire Strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de la Estados--Staten Island. The two boats steered west of the Falklands and raced northward, often within sight of one another.

Three racers rounded Cape Horn at about the same time last Tuesday. First was South Africa’s Bertie Reed on Stabilo Boss. A half hour later, Ian Kiernan’s Triple M-Spirit of Sydney, Australia, rounded.

Meanwhile, Canadian John Hughes nursed his dismasted 40-footer, Joseph Young, toward Chile. Since his dismasting Feb. 6, Hughes has used a jury rig of two spinnaker poles in an A-frame on which he has set sails. He sailed north 400 miles before turning east for Talachuano, Chile. At week’s end, Hughes was still 2,900 miles from his goal.