Thomas Coville has supreme confidence in his Sodeb’O monster trimaran, but his trip to break Francis Joyon’s incredible solo RTW record is, so far, a bust. Coville is over a thousand miles behind Joyon, and for the moment, his problem is too much wind rather than the calms and headwinds that pushed him so far back from Joyon’s nearly perfect rhumb line delivery down the Atlantic. If Coville can put together a string of the kind of 600+ mile days like he thinks he can, it might not take long to reel in the imaginary leader, but being this far behind turns up the pressure to “boil,” which often makes things explode.
Froggy Anarchist “Laurent” gives us the skinny from yesterday:
Thomas just had the cold front pass over him and had gusts at 50 knots; he nose dived with the 3 hulls and ended up with the boat vertical, on the verge of pitchpoling. His reaction:"The little "planté" (nosedive) on the first day was a joke compared to that!! Luckily, I had the reflex to let the mainsheet go, instead of grabbing it to hang onto something!"
This great shot from top photographer Christophe Launay’s sail with Coville a couple of months back. More in the thread, and much more on Christophe’s site.
