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They may have missed Cable & Wireless Adventurer's 74 days 20 hours 58 minutes round the world record, but the crew of Spirit of Cardiff are still plugging on, determined to complete their circumnavigation of the world. You can read all about daily life on board in Clive Tully's on-line journal
"We're over three-quarters of the way round," says skipper Alan Priddy. "Nearly 20,000 miles from Gibraltar. There are many who said we wouldn't get this far in such a small boat. It's only the weather, which has been uncharacteristically bad in many places along the way, which has prevented us from setting our target time of sixty days."
Alan, Clive & Steve set off from Cardiff
"The point is, we're not giving up. At the end of it all, we will still have registered the fastest time ever around the world for a boat of this size. Don't forget, this is a 33ft boat - the continuing overall record-holder, the Cable & Wireless Adventurer, is three and a half times bigger. Everywhere we've been, people can't believe how far we've come or the bad weather conditions we've come through in a boat so tiny."
"Of course, we're disappointed not to have broken Cable & Wireless Adventurer's open class record, but anyone who thinks that makes us a failure has missed the point. Our circumnavigation of the world is no less an achievement just because bad weather forced us to do it slower."
Spirit of Cardiff has arrived in Panama, where after a brief service stop she will transit the canal before working north through the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast of North America. She has now amassed 24 of her final tally of 31 port-to-port records, which along with her previous world records, puts Spirit of Cardiff in a unique position amongst powerboats for the sheer number of world records she has set or broken.
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