Lamazou Sets Record in Winning Globe Challenge Solo Sailing Race

Titouan Lamazou crossed the finish line in almost no wind shortly after midnight today, completing a circumnavigation in 109 days and winning the Globe Challenge solo sailing race.

In so doing, Lamazou broke every record for sailing circumnavigation, solo or otherwise. He broke the solo record of 150 days, Bermuda to Bermuda, set by Dodge Morgan in 1986. He also broke the 136-day mark set by Philippe Jeantot in the 1987 BOC Challenge solo around-the-world race. That race has three stops. In fact, no sailing vessel in history has come close to Lamazou’s mark aboard his 60 foot Ecureuil D’aqitaine.

His unofficial time was 109 days, 9 hours and 18 minutes.

Of the 13 starters, only seven are left in the race.

Lamazou finished to the cheers of thousands as he was brought into this fishing and resort port on the French Atlantic coast. They had been waiting since noon for his arrival. But the man who averaged 9.43 knots for the entire 24,905 nautical miles fell into a windless hole 20 miles short of the line and drifted home at less than two knots.

Two hundred miles behind him was Loick Peyron on Laea Poch. Peyron, 30, had 14.5 hours in the bank, a credit he received for going to the aid of a fellow racer who capsized in the Indian Ocean in December.

In third place and still 600 miles out was Jean-Luc Van Den Heede.