Vendee Globe : finish expected tomorrow around 9 am:

[Sybarite]

Gabaret will have taken about 7 days off Desjoyaux's record. His time wil be faster than Commodore, the first fully-crewed catamaran to break the 80 days.

I was listening to Jean-Luc Van den Heede who holds the record for the west-about record. He was speaking about the technical advances: sails, electronics, keels, weather knowldge, but he said that the one item which stood out above all the others now was the quality of the automatic pilots. When he was racing, they couldn't cope with speeds above 15 knots.

 

[dunedin]

Absolutely fantastic achievement - of unsurpassed seamanship, skill, stamina, guts ..... and engineering. Congratulations to Francois and Armel.
And some cynics on this forum thought early on that these boats were not fit for purpose. Completing 29,000 miles non-stopdriven absolutely flat out - faster than fully crewed 80 foot racing catemarans - is amazing. And 545 miles in just a day is similar to he fully crewed Volvo 60 boats. Fantastic stuff. I want one of these boats

 

[HunterWanderer]

Yes was a great finish.
Gabart averaged over 15 kts . What an achievement! and a really close finish of 3 hours after sailing round the world single handed.
But Alex also doing really well in an old boat.

 

[Daydream believer]

Absolutely fantastic achievement - of unsurpassed seamanship, skill, stamina, guts ..... and engineering. Congratulations to Francois and Armel.
And some cynics on this forum thought early on that these boats were not fit for purpose. Fantastic stuff. I want one of these boats

I think if you keep looking you might find a couple of slightly raced second hand models. In perfect condition but need new keel. If you do not have any spare keels you might be able to get one that only needs a mast. Probably find one off an old snapdragon you could butcher