After a demanding 5 days 19 hours and 29 minutes aboard the 105ft Sodeb'O, Thomas Coville has set a record breaking time for sailing single-handed across the North-Atlantic. The new time shaves eight hours off the previous record set by Francis Joyon, aboard his 98ft Trimaran IDEC in 2005. 

Sodeb'O was carrying a full set of Future Fibres rigging that combines both PBO and Kevlar cables to achieve optimum performance. Even with a 300 mile lead over Joyon's time, Coville faced some tough challenges to maintain his position in the closing stages. Last night, as the wind fell Coville was forced to gybe several times, taking him off his direct course but allowing him to maintain an averaged of over 20 knots as he closed in on the southwest tip of England.

Coville and the Sodeb'O team have worked closely with Future Fibres French agents Blew Stoub and mast engineers, HDS, to provide a fully customised solution, covering the full range of standing, furling and aft rigging.

Future Fibres founder Tom Hutchinson commented: "This is a great result for Thomas and the whole Sodeb'O team, they've all worked incredibly hard and this is a well deserved record. This is also the 6th world record for Future Fibres rigged boats in as many months.

Tom continued: "Single handed races like this are incredibly tough on the body but also the mind. Staying awake for six days is hard enough but Thomas has been working very hard the whole time. Sodeb'O has 650 square metres of sail and there's always something to do, mistakes can be very costly so you have to make sure you are always alert – that sounds pretty hard when you have only slept for an hour or so in the past five days! – congratulations Thomas."

Big congratulations go out to the Future Fibres rigged ICAP Leopard, achieving its third record in a month yesterday in the Round the Island Race. The Mike Slade owned maxi became the fastest monohull to complete the 55 mile course, beating the record he set himself back in 2001. Crossing the finishing line in under four hours, Mike and the crew shaved 12 minutes off his old record and added another trophy to their ever expanding cabinet in the process.

Congratulations also go to Mike Golding and the Ecover team for winning the Open 60 class, although sympathies have to go out to Alex Thomson, who was disqualified following a collision between Hugo Boss and the Farr 45 Atomic, just before the race. Alex, who was joined on board by Formula one ace Lewis Hamilton, managed to finish first in class, despite his bowspirit being broken in the accident. The rest of the Open 60 pack, all using full sets of PBO rigging from Future Fibres, was made up of high profile teams Artemis, Aviva and Pindar. Artemis, after a battle with Aviva lasting for most of the race, finished just behind Ecover, with a time of 4:53:18, very closely followed by Dee Caffari in Aviva.

In the other classes; 'Full Pelt', skippered by Stephen Fein and sporting a full set of Future Fibres PBO, took the Yeoman Challenge Trophy in the highly competitive IRC Group 2, with a corrected time of 6:50:02.

Future Fibres founder Tom Hutchinson Commented: "It was a great race this year; the wind was good, 15 to 20 knots blowing southwest, so there was some excellent sailing to be had. The record breaking number of entries this year was great, but as we saw with Alex, it made things a little tricky at times! Leopard has had an amazing month and, after the BMW Round Island Yacht Race last week, she seems to be close to untouchable at the moment."

Congratulations to Mike Slade, skipper Chris Sherlock and the ICAP sponsored Leopard team, who returned home this morning victorious, after comfortably beating the transatlantic speed record, set by Phocea in 1988.

The 100 foot super maxi completed the 2,925 nautical mile journey, between New York and Lizard Point Lighthouse, at around 20.22 (BST) last night, beating Phocea's record of eight days, three hours and 29 minutes by over eight hours.

Created by Farr, for serial racing yacht owner Mike Slade, the 30 metre Leopard is one of the highest profile racing yachts on the water today. Representing the pinnacle of racing yacht design, the super maxi features a full set of Future Fibres PBO composite rigging, supporting her 154 foot carbon spar and up to 15,000 square feet of sail area.

Future Fibres founder Tom Hutchinson commented: "Everyone here is really pleased for Chris and all the team. We've been working with the leopard guys for a number of years now and I've known some of them for longer than I care to remember! Mark Thomas [watch captain] said the boat felt amazing right from the start, at times launching off waves at 35 knots with the speedo out of the water!

Tom continued: "We are obviously very pleased to be a part of such a successful project, Leopard really is a fantastic boat and her wide hull lines make her very well suited to high speed offshore racing. I can see Leopard winning a lot over the next couple of years and that's great for us too, this result takes our world record tally to 43, I hope it continues!"

This morning's victory is a deserved finish to an eventful week, which saw the 12 strong team having to avoid icebergs, dodge sleeping whales and even remove a giant sunfish caught up in the rudder!

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At 105-foot long, Sodeb'O is one of the most ambitious and technologically advanced trimarans ever built. That's not even taking into consideration the fact that it has been designed and built for a crew of one!

Thomas Coville plans to make an assault on the singlehanded round-the-world record set by Ellen MacArthur in February 2005 in her purpose-built 75-foot trimaran, B&Q. It was a phenomenal performance, and it will demand excellence from Coville in every aspect of his campaign, if he is to have any chance of beating B&Q's time of 71 days and 15 hours.

One area where there have been significant developments over the past three years has been in rigging, and Coville has been working closely with composite rigging specialists Future Fibres in producing something that will support his 35-metre carbon rig safely around the world through all conditions – but for the minimum possible weight.

PBO rigging is beginning to take over from Kevlar as the preferred option on these types of boats and the original plan was to fit out the entire Sodeb'O rig with PBO. With the Nigel Irens / Benoît Cabaret design having been built in Australia at the Boatspeed yard, Coville and a small crew sailed Sodeb'O back from Australia up to Europe.

The semi-circumnavigation was also an ideal opportunity to test the possibility of using a full complement of PBO rigging. Miles Amin of Future Fibres explains the rationale of the project: "Becoming technical partners with Thomas and the Sodeb'O project has been an excellent learning curve for both parties. Historically the big multihulls have used Kevlar rigging. PBO hasn't been perceived as suitable on maxi-multis because of the extreme shock loading that can occur in this type of extreme sailing.

"But there was a lot of rumour and word of mouth about the pros and cons of these different types of composite material, so Sodeb'O's journey from Australia to France was an excellent opportunity to get some hard facts. We could put some cables on the boat and carry out a full programme of destructive and non-destructive testing.

"We already had a fair idea of PBO's strength under static loading, but predicting dynamic loading is a black art, which is why this trip was so valuable to us. We wanted as much information as possible from Thomas, for example how long they had been on port/starboard tack, in what wind strength and wave conditions etc. We wanted to know what sort of treatment the cables had seen.

"When we got the cables back, we found that in some cases the cables had been cycling at a higher percentage of their break load than we had expected. That was a bit of a surprise. Whereas we had expected the cables to be cycling at 10-25% of maximum break load, the figure in some cases was more like 25-45% of the cable's UTS (ultimate tensile strength). The cables were coming on and off load more often and more aggressively than we had thought.
The aim of the exercise was to analyse what had worked satisfactorily and what had not worked so well, and then to upgrade or up-spec the cables where needed."

"The majority of rigging is staying as PBO," says Amin, "with a few elements being made in Kevlar. When Ellen went round on her record-breaking voyage, B&Q was rigged with a full set of Future Fibres Kevlar rigging. Things have moved on in the past three years, and if Thomas is going to have a chance of breaking that record, he needs to move the game on in every area. We believe that for this project he is using the most optimised set of rigging ever produced."

Amin acknowledges that other campaigns may be using an equivalent, lighter set of PBO rigging, but that such an approach wouldn't be appropriate for Sodeb'O. "When you've got a fully-crewed multihull, you've got 14 pairs of eyes to keep a good watch on what's happening. It's easier to keep things maintained, and you've always got someone steering, watching for the gusts and the waves. Thomas is not going to spend much of his time at the helm – and of course he's going to need to sleep! So the set of rigging we have produced for him is the lightest and strongest we could make, whilst also providing that safety factor to give him peace of mind that this rigging will get him around the world."

Coville is looking at making an attempt at the singlehanded round-the-world record sometime in the next few wee

Future Fibres offers its congratulations to Franck Cammas and his team aboard Groupama III, the 105-foot trimaran which has just smashed the Route of Discovery record from Cadiz to San Salvador.

Using a complete set of composite rigging supplied by Future Fibres, the maxi-trimaran covered the 3,901 nautical mile course across the Atlantic in just 7 days 10 hours 58 minutes and 53 seconds of sea (subject to ratification by the WSSRC). The new time takes 2 days 2 hours minutes and 25 seconds off the previous record set by Steve Fossett's PlayStation in February 2003.

Groupama III crossed the Atlantic at an average speed of 21.79 knots, compared with PlayStation's average of 16.92 knots, a measure of just how far technology has progressed in the past four years.

Miles Amin, who handles technical sales for Valencia-based composite rigging specialist Future Fibres, praised Cammas and the crew. "This is the first record Groupama III has attempted and the result demonstrates the determination and attention to detail of this very professional team.

"Alongside our French agent, Vincent Le Roux and his company Blew Stoub, we have worked with Franck and his team on the two ORMA 60 trimarans Groupama I & II, and in everything they do they strive for the very best. The requirements for the rigging were very specific: the need for optimising power to weight ratio and a supplier willing to provide the highest level of service. Future Fibres' worked with the Groupama design team on a series of cable load testing, lash testing, fitting optimisation, custom mast interfacing, cover abrasion testing and product development."

Groupama III is a boat that dwarfs almost anything else in both scale and ambition, so it was back to the drawing board for Future Fibres when it came to specifying the rigging. Amin says this project has tested the very limits of customisation. "This trimaran is extreme; it sails so fast and the loads are huge. The cable on the Solent stay, for example, has a breakload in excess of 77 tonnes, and the furling cable on the Maxi Gennaker is over 41 metres long.

"Obviously, this is a very weight-conscious project so we have worked hard to supply cables at minimum weight and windage. It has been a very exciting project, and I'm sure this Route of Discovery record is just the first of many that Groupama III will conquer in the coming months and years."

Franck Cammas' Maxi trimaran Groupama III was launched in June 2006 with a full set of Future Fibres composite rigging. The trimaran has been designed specifically for around the world racing and record attempts. It is the largest Maxi trimaran built to date, lighter and more powerful than its predecessors.