Where would we be without the French? I mean, where would offshore sailing have got to over the past half-century without the relentlessly pioneering spirit of the French? When you think it’s not much past 50 years since Sir Robin Knox-Johnston won the first around-the-world sailing race, the Sunday Times Golden Globe in 1968/69, and now we are witnessing six 100ft foiling maxi trimarans charging around the planet at unfathomably fast speeds. All six boats are French.
Where Sir Robin took 312 days to navigate the 32ft wooden ketch successfully around the world, the winner of the
