MAGNIFICENT PEYRON: THE OLD MAN WON THE ROUTE DU RHUM

3:32 AM in Boat Plans

When he came out ahead of that storm and managed to keep about 100nm to his closest pursuer, Guichard, on the faster and bigger Spindrift trimaran, I thought that all he had to do was to control that advantage and with a bit of luck, the faster boat would not be able to catch him before the finish. But that would not make Peyron style, so he just kept pushing like a kid and finished with an advantage of 180nm!!!!

 Peyron showed not only that he is a great sailor (we all knew that) but that at 55 he his still in shape and has an incredible endurance. I believe he won the race on the first days on that big storm, that he described as "hellish conditions". Alone on that multihull he, and all the younger skippers on similar boats, did not sleep practically for 48 hours. He said that the only time he tried to close the eyes at the wheel and have a brief nap, he woke up alarmed with the boat high on the air on the way to a capsize. He says he got some more grey hair with that :-) How can a 55 year old guy have the same endurance as a 30 year old guy? That one beats me, unless Peyron is a very special man, one of a kind and I believe that is the case.

He did not only beat them all as he beat the race record for almost 2 hours (7 days, 15 hours, 8 minutes, 32 seconds). I believe it was for doing this that he pushed like a mad man on the last 500nm when he had the race already controlled. He did not only want to win, he wanted the race record too. Crazy man, it is too much for a 55 year old guy, except that he did not know that, so it had no importance at all. LOL

The funny thing is that he was only racing that trimaran by accident: Not finding any competitive boat, and that means that the sponsors did not believe him to be still competitive at the highest level, Peyron that likes to race, was going to make the race, for the fun of it, on a very old and small trimaran, on the Route class, this one:

Armel Le Cleash, another top younger racer, was entering the race on a competitive trimaran sponsored by the ones that had sponsored Peyron for years, Banque Populaire. Then Armel hurt badly an arm...and they had to look around for someone able to sail the big trimaran solo in a competitive way...and the best option seemed to be old Peyron. So almost without preparation here he goes from a small old slow tiny catamaran to a huge fast one, sailing the Route du Rhum on a competitive boat...and the rest is history ;-)

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