Francis Joyon

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Francis Joyon (born May 28, 1956) is a professional sailboat racer and yachtsman.

In February 2004 Breton Francis Joyon became the fastest world solo yachtsman, setting a time over 20 days faster than the previous record for a circumnavigation of 72 days 22 hours and 54 minutes and 22 seconds of covering more than 28,000 miles at an average speed of 15.5 knots on the 90 foot(27.4m) trimaran IDEC.

In February 2005 Ellen MacArthur beat Joyon's record by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes, 49 seconds.

On 6 July 2005 Idec skippered by Francis Joyon crossed the finishing line between Lizard Point and Ushant 6d days 4 hours 1 minute and 37 seconds after the start at Ambrose Lighthouse off New York. The Breton thus broke the 11-year old record of Laurent Bourgnon for the single-handed crossing of the Atlantic Ocean with a sailing boat. On this voyage he also broke the 24 hour distance record for single-handed sailing by sailing 543 nautical miles in one day on the 3 July 2005. Joyon's remarkable record voyage ended tragically on 7 July when Idec became stuck between two rocks off the Breton coast. The boat was steered by autopilot while Joyon slept. When he and his helpers tried to salvage Idec, the boat was lifted by a wave and smashed onto the rocks. Thus, the 4-million-Euro trimaran was wrecked and Joyon had no vessel to attempt to break further sailing records.

On May 9th 2006 Joyon announced that he was building a new muilti-hull to be called IDEC II. He plans to attempt a solo circumnavigation in autumn 2007. His new boat will be designed for solo sailing unlike the original IDEC. Construction is due to start in the summer and the boat design is by Nigel Irens & Bernard Caberet.

IDEC is expected to weigh 11 tons compared to his previous boat which weighed 16 tons. It will have 10% more sail area. The new boat should be capable of taking 3 days of the existing record under the same weather conditions.