Four 100ft trimarans sailed by just two crew each around a 14,000mile figure of eight course in the North and South Atlantic Oceans.

Each boat regularly cruised at over 30 knots and hit top speeds well in excess of 40 knots. These are incredible, awesome, overpowered, understaffed beasts and the world’s fastest offshore machines.

If you’re an early follower at PlanetSail you may have seen this story when we first put it out at the beginning of the year. But now we’ve blended the two parts together to make one full feature. We’ve polished it, tweaked it and re-edited it to create the full story of the Brest Atlantiques race.

The has to be one of the most extraordinary offshore races run in modern times.

by Matt Sheahan