IDEC 2 was designed and built for Francis Joyon with a clear objective of recovering the solo circumnavigation record he lost to Ellen MacArthur in the winter of 2004-05. The boat was launched by her builders Marsaudon Composites in Lorient, Brittany in June 2007 leaving Joyon a few months to work the boat up in time for a winter attempt on the record.

Those who witnessed his crossing of the start line off Ushant on the morning of 23rd November could never have dreamt that they would be witnessing his return just 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes and 6 seconds later - bettering Ellen's time by a solid 14 days !

Joyon, who sees little merit in the complexities of modern gadgetry, proved he could complete his epic voyage with no more power than could be provided by a small wind generator and a couple of solar-panels. He prefers to leave the weight of an engine - and most other go-fast devices ashore so he has more time to get on with the job of sailing the boat. This is ground-breaking stuff that calls into question the very basis of current thinking in this domain.

We are very proud to have had a part to play in this astonishing and audacious adventure. Bravo Francis !

Thomas Coville commissioned the trimaran SODEB'O from builders Boatspeed (who built Ellen MacArthur's B&Q - Castorama) in the spring of 2006. Though the original concept drawing was the same for both, the two resulting boats,SODEB'O and IDEC were very different as they were driven by two very different skippers. SODEB'O was also launched in June 2007 ready for the voyage back to Europe.

Coville was forced to miss the weather window used by Joyon by a small last minute technical problem. He finally crossed the start line on 17th December and although the first few days went well Coville lost time in the South Atlantic with variable and often contrary winds.

Once further South Coville's averages started matching those of Joyon's a few weeks earlier culminating in a days run that was to become a new single-handed record of 619.3 nautical miles - an average of 25.8 knots !

Coville had been forced much further South than Joyon and just when he and his boat were getting into their stride the attempt was brutally ended by a collision with what is presumed to be a 'growler' or small iceberg. Like Thomas we are looking forward to the next round of this exciting contest !

Ellen MacArthur commissioned this boat to prove what a purpose-built ocean-racing trimaran can really do.

Her goal is to beat a number of established single-handed ocean records which calls for a rugged boat capable of turning in consistently high average daily runs over long periods of time.

One of the challenges that lay in this brief was to find the right balance between a boat big enough to be able to keep going fast in heavy weather, and yet no so big that Ellen would have to sail in an over-conservative way in order not to lose control of the beast.

The boat was engineered by John Levell and built to a very high standard by Boatspeed in Sydney.

Ellen used an attempt to beat the single-handed west-east transatlantic record as a run-up to her circumnavigation record attempt. Although she missed that record by less than an hour, the attempt gave her the confidence to make her celebrated assault on Francis Joyon's already very fast time for a solo circumnavigation. The rest is history... the girl is extraordinary!