550 miles solo in one day: solo sailing record falls again in Vendée Globe

Yoann Richomme, on the IMOCA Paprec Arkéa, has broken the record for the longest distance sailed solo in 24 hours on a monohull, covering 551.84 miles on a 'crazy horse' ride in the Atlantic

Yoann Richomme, on the IMOCA Paprec Arkéa, has broken the record for the longest distance sailed solo in 24 hours on a monohull.

Richomme has smashed the 550-mile barrier, covering 551.84 nautical miles, the equivalent to 1,021.7 km, in just 24 hours (subject to official ratification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council).

The record was set between 0930 yesterday and 0930 today, Wednesday 20 November. Yesterday Richomme sent video from onboard showing Paprec Arkéa flying along at 29+ knots in glorious sunshine and fairly flat seas in the North Atlantic.

“It wasn’t that much wind, maybe averaging 18 knots or something, not that much,” said Richomme in a live link to his boat today. “But the swell was really nice and you know when the boat gets flying it does work really well.

“I was a bit overpowered on the J0, I know a few boats peeled to the fractional to be a bit safer.

“It was a bit of a crazy horse ride sometimes, so I had to calm the boat. But I do have access to the foil rake and the mainsheet just from my seat so I actually had quite a nice day just trimming along as the gusts and maybe a few squalls went by. It was quite a smooth ride for most of it.”

The previous record was set by fellow Vendée Globe competitor Nicolas Lunven on Holcim-PRB just a week ago (546.64 nautical miles).

“It was pretty unexpected [to break the record] because the run between the [high pressure] ridge we had beforehand and the ITCZ was quite short – so I wasn’t even looking at beating it because I thought it would be less than 500 miles. But apparently it was enough to beat Nico Lunven, which is my main pleasure – beating Nico Lunven in life!” joked Richomme today.

“I really pushed hard, my goal was to catch the guys in front because I’m really afraid of a breakaway near Brazil, and I thought I could catch up some miles during that day. It did work out – but it’s not paying off too much today, because I’m stuck in a light spot and have been doing 3-4 knots, so it’s not looking good for the next sched.”

Yoann Richomme: fast ‘rookie’

Yoann Richomme is taking part in his first Vendée Globe and is currently ranked 4th in the 39-boat fleet.

Remarkably, until this time last year, Richomme had never raced an IMOCA solo. However, he is highly experienced in Class 40 and Figaro racing – a two-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro – and immediately made his presence felt on the fleet.

In November 2023, Richomme and co-skipper Yann Eliès took 2nd in the Transat Jacques Vabre with the Antoine Koch/Finot Conq-designed Paprec Arkéa.

He immediately followed that up by winning the Retour a la Base eastbound transatlantic race – his first ever solo race in an IMOCA.

And he delivered a back-to-back win in his next Transat, the 2024 Transat CIC.

Richomme sat out the last Vendée Globe – despite having the clear ability to compete, he did not have a well funded campaign prospect, and decided that he did not want to take part if he was going to be uncompetitive.

In 2021, however, he was selected to skipper the long-standing Paprec Arkéa programme, replacing Sébastien Simon (who now races the former 11th Hour Racing IMOCA as Groupe Dubreuil).

The programme included building a new latest generation IMOCA. Paprec Arkéa is a near-identical sistership to Thomas Ruyant’s For The Planet. Richomme did a full tour of the boat for Yachting World ahead of the Vendée start, in which he explains the design concepts behind it – see our YouTube channel.

Vendée Globe Day 10 leaders

Richomme is currently in 4th place on day 10 of the 2024 Vendée Globe. The lead pack are separated by just 40 miles, with current leader another Vendée ‘rookie’, British skipper Sam Goodchild (Vulnerable).

In 2nd place is Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil), just 11 miles behind Goodchild on the tracker.

Third placed Charlie Dalin (Macif) is just 6 miles away from Richomme, with previous record setter Nicholas Lunven (Holcim-PRB) some 30 miles west. Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable) is another 30 miles west also. As the fleet enters the Doldrums this lead group is liable to compress and switch rankings as they hit pockets of lighter air.

“The thing is we came in [to the Doldrums] pretty much all in the same spot, with a bit of lateral distance,” explained Richomme.

“Charlie and I got under this cloud which didn’t look bad, but started growing on us right away. We could see the exit, two miles, three miles in front and it kept on growing and we’ve been stuck.”

However, early forecasts suggest the South Atlantic could offer good conditions.

“I think it does look good,” said Richomme. “I stopped looking because I don’t know my exit times out of the light winds, and once I get out I’ll do some routings again.

“But I saw there was nice stable cold font by Brazil, that was maybe cutting the high pressure in two. Which would be nice – this is a slow trip so far, eh? I know I’ve beaten the record and we’ve beaten it twice, but in between these days it’s been so slow.”

It has been a slow race so far: the current race leader, Sam Goodchild, is around 1000 miles behind Armel le Cleac’h after 10 days of racing, when le Cleac’h set the course record in 2016.

However, Richomme believes with good conditions the current IMOCAs could yet set more records. “If we do get into a warm front in front of a cold one on a flat sea, I think the crewed record is do-able.

“I don’t think it matters too much if you’re solo or crewed, so we could get a lot closer to the crewed record. You’ve got to get the right conditions, but I feel like most of the boats do have that kind of speed now.”

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