FRANCIS JOYON will today shatter the single-handed round-the-world record when he sails into Brest aboard his trimaran IDEC.

When British sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur set the record of 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds in February 2005, many thought it would never be broken. She had smashed the previous mark, set by Joyon, by 32 hours. But now the Frenchman will reclaim his world record, and destroy MacArthur’s time in the process.

Last night the 51-year-old from Locmariaquer was less than 300 miles from Brest in what was, amazingly, only his 58th day at sea. He was on course to cross the finish line at Ushant early this morning, fate, weather and the effects of 26,000 miles at sea permitting.

“My time back in 2003 looked like it couldn’t be smashed,” Joyon said via radio. “Then MacArthur, with her remarkable performance, beat it the following year.”

Joyon’s has pushed himself to the edge of endurance, going without sleep, battling to keep his trimaran on course and avoid floating icebergs in six-metre swells while rushing along at 30 knots in the south Pacific. IDEC’s mast is refusing to pivot, but a low-pressure system north of the Azores is driving him home.

Along the way Joyon has already broken every solo, nonstop record on this voyage. He has set records for the fastest journey to each of the route’s significant milestones at the equator, Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin on Australia’s southwest coast, South America’s Cape Horn and the equator again on the homeward-bound leg.

Favourable weather conditions have seen Joyon average a scarcely credible 20 knots for the journey,

covering more than 480 nautical miles each day. “There were two very worrying moments; once in the south in the middle of the ice as a storm started to blow, and in the Doldrums, when I discovered I could lose my mast,” Joyon said. “The breaking up of the pack ice and the icebergs floating around me at unusually high latitudes certainly attracted my attention.”