Bruno Peyron

Bruno Peyron, 2012.Antoine Imbert

Bruno Peyron, in full Bruno Tristan Peyron   (born November 10, 1955Angers, France), French yachtsman who set a number of sailing records and was a three-time winner (1993, 2002, 2005) of the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest trip around the world under sail.

Peyron, who was the oldest of two nautical world-champion brothers, was raised in La Baule in southern Brittany’s Loire Valley. As a young child, he fell in love with the ocean when his father and mentor, an oil-tanker captain, taught him to sail. As a teenager, Peyron began pursuing a lifelong goal: “to break every speed record on all the oceans of the world.” He soon matured into a regularly honoured sailor on the international offshore multihull racing circuit.

Peyron successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean 27 times, 11 of them solo. In 1987 he was awarded France’s equivalent of Athlete of the Year, and from that time he ranked as the top Formula One (boats longer than 21 metres [70 feet]) skipper. During 1987, while racing only against his brother, he set his first record for sailing single-handedly across the Atlantic from New York to England—11 days 11 hours 46 minutes. He improved that solo record with a transatlantic voyage of less than 10 days in July 1992.

During this time Peyron was also focusing on Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days (1872), in which the fictional Phileas Fogg traveled the globe by train, boat, and elephant. In 1990 Peyron joined the Association Tour du Monde en 80 Jours, a confederation of 15 sailors whose goal was to reenact the voyage with the use of modern technology. In 1993 Peyron and his four-man crew challenged Fogg’s seemingly unattainable record on the high seas. On January 31 they set out aboard the high-tech, sail-powered, 26-metre (86-foot) Commodore Explorer, the world’s largest catamaran. Over the next several months, Peyron and crew survived turbulent storms, glacial and gale-force winds, 19-metre (65-foot) waves, a near capsize, crew members washed overboard, and, on the 70th day, a collision with two sperm whales—the second time a hull on the vessel was damaged. As Commodore sailed, Peyron added more speed records to the history books—9 days to the Equator, 23 days to South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, 33 days to Australia’s Cape Leeuwin, and 53 days to South America’s Cape Horn—and covered a historic 507 miles (816 km) in a 24-hour run to complete the legendary voyage. Without stopping or receiving outside assistance, Peyron journeyed more than 27,000 nautical miles, averaging 21.12 knots. On April 20, 1993, Peyron and his crew completed the race, in a time of 79 days, 6 hours, and 15 minutes, to win the newly created Jules Verne Trophy. Their time shattered the previous circumnavigation sailing record of 109 days set in 1990.

Peyron won his second Jules Verne Trophy in 2002, when he and a crew of 13 aboard the catamaran Orange finished the race in 64 days, 8 hours, and 37 minutes. Three years later he set another record as he and the crew of the Orange II circumnavigated the globe in 50 days, 16 hours, and 20 minutes.