593.23 miles in 24 hours for Swedish VO70
Sweden’s Ericsson 4 has broken the world 24-hours distance record for a monohull yacht.
The VO70, which leads the first stage of the race between Alicante and Cape Town in South Africa, travelled 593.23 miles (1,085 kilometres) in the South Atlantic in the 24-hour period that ended at 0800 GMT.
That shattered the previous record of 562.97 miles set in January 2006 by ABN Amro 2, which was skippered by France’s Sebastien Josse, in the Indian Ocean during the previous edition of the Volvo race.
France’s Bruno Peyron set the record for the longest distance ever travelled in a yacht in 24 hours when he covered 766.8 miles in the Orange 2 catamaran – a multihull yacht – during his 2006 round-the-world sailing record.
Ericsson 4, skippered by Brazil’s Torben Grael, was about 30 miles ahead of Puma Racing of the United States, some 1,800 miles from Cape Town where the eight boats taking part in the race are expected to arrive on Sunday or Monday.
Organizers did not rule out the possibility that another record could be set on Wednesday, either by Ericsson 4 or one of the other boats taking part in the race.