On New Year’s Eve, the crew of the MOD70 Phaedo³ set a new record by circumnavigating the Caribbean island of St. Barth in 1 hour, 5 minutes. With a maximum speed of 39 knots and rarely falling below 30 knots downwind, the run made for an exhilarating ride.
Luckily, we can join them through an on-board camera.
The MOD70 (Multi One Design) is a 70-foot trimaran built specifically for sailing fast. Skipper Lloyd Thornburg and his crew have mastered racing their speed machine.
Before claiming line honors in the RORC Transatlantic Race in December, the crew of Phaedo3 set an RORC Caribbean 600 race record last February.
They went on to light up the Caribbean race circuit with impressive results at the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta and the Les Voiles de St. Barth. Phaedo3also set an around-Antigua record and crushed the Antigua to Newport record.
But it wasn’t until the crew got to the United Kingdom that they started to claim world records with some regularity. In fact, they set three in one week last September.
On their way to the U.K., incidentally, they recorded the fastest elapsed time in the 2015 Transatlantic Race. Once there, they snapped at the heels of Spindrift 2 — the world’s largest maxi trimaran — in the Rolex Fastnet before finishing just minutes behind.
