French legendary sailor Francis Joyon set a new world record time by completing the sailing to London from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 31 days, 23 hours, 36 minutes and 46 seconds on Wednesday morning. 

Joyon and his crew beat the previous record set by Italian skipper Giovanni Soldini in 2018 by four days, three hours and 26 seconds. 

"We did have some difficult moments," recalled the 63-year-old Joyon on the pontoon close to London's landmark Tower Bridge.  

"We had a moment where we had no more freshwater for drinking because we produce the water on the boat and we had no more energy to produce the water. And then also we had a moment when we had very bad weather. We had some passages with bad weather," he added. 

With this record, Joyon brought to an end of the IDEC SPORT Asian Tour, setting sail from Port Louis in Brittany, France on October 19 last year.  

During the tour, Joyon arrived in China for the first time as he sailed from Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam to south China's Shenzhen. 

"It's the first time I went to China to Shenzhen. And sailing's really a new sport there. I think it's developing in China. It's really nice to see the passion and the interest that is growing in China." 

(With input from Xinhua and Reuters)