News Around the World
Happier times… Armel Le Cléac’h training for the Route du Rhum last October on his magnificent but almost certainly flawed Ultim foiler Banque Populaire IX. The end of the 100-footer appears to have been precipitated by a forward beam failure, but making the job of the engineers much harder is the fact that there was not enough left of the big tri to be sure whether or not the beam had actually impacted anything – although it looks increasingly likely that the highly loaded structure for some as yet unidentified reason had just cried enough. To move forward with any confidence that is certainly what the engineers on the new Banque Pop will have to assume
FRANCE Joyeux anniversaire!!! Late in January Banque Populaire and its sailing team were busy celebrating the 30th anniversary of the French bank’s first steps into sailing sponsorship. But the past few months have been hard for the race team Banque Populaire because of the wrecking of Armel Le Cléac’h’s magnificent Ultim foiling trimaran Banque Populaire IX during the Route du Rhum. A lot of people thought this might be the moment when finance’s ‘big blue’ looked elsewhere to spend its sponsorship money... and after the loss of a 12-million euro trimaran in its first big race you would not blame them. But that is not the story. Offshore race team Banque Populaire,
based in Lorient, in one day confirmed the construction of a new 33m Ultim maxi-trimaran, they reaffirmed their commitment with the French Federation (FFV) and the French Olympic sailing team until the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic regatta, and then they intro- duced two other completely new offshore racing projects: the Solitaire Urgo Le Figaro with Armel on the new Figaro 3 and the purchase of an existing Imoca for the 27-year-old female skipper Clarisse Crémer entering the next Vendée Globe. Huge involvement, more than ever! About the construction of the
new Ultim, still designed by VPLP for the most part, Ronan Lucas, director of the BP Team, said: ‘The first carbon will be laid in March [the building is being undertaken jointly by CDK and Multiplast]. The current plan is to be in the water by the end of 2020, early 2021. So 18 months of construction. But we want to take the time to do things right.’ Originally scheduled for the end of this year, the Brest Oceans
Ultim singlehanded round-the-world race, which was postponed after the problems in the Rhum, will now not take place until the completion of a new full-crew round-the-world race that has been introduced to allow these experimental boats to be validated more thoroughly before they try to sail around alone. Armel’s new Ultim should be substantially the same, but with an even more sophisticated foil-control system. Ronan: ‘We thought
18 SEAHORSE
the first reason why the previous Ultim capsized was because the float was gone. But after talking to Armel and looking at the images, we now believe it was the starboard forward beam that first failed catastrophically, following a shock of some sort, swiftly followed by the starboard rear beam. ‘It all happened in seconds. It’s an accident that turned into a
chain of insane events and as we know the trimaran reached the coast as a wreck after the long tow in bad conditions. Now our goal is to make a better boat. ‘Two years ago we wondered if such a boat could fly, today we
know she can. We will work again with VPLP for the main design but we will also bring in some other specialists to work on the appendages. The constraints we have are to use the moulds of the previous floats, possibly also the moulds of the beams… but using a different type of structure. ‘We are also looking at the moulds and structures of existing
boats, such as Macif’s beams, for example. Unfortunately we still have more questions than answers! ‘But we do not start from a blank page. The trimaran will have
a platform based on BP IX. However, the foils will not be installed in the same place, nor will the mast, and the appendages will have new profiles and quite a different shape.’ The cost of such a giant is at least 10million euros. Perhaps a
bit less for the new boat with the use of the existing float moulds but not the tooling of the main hull which was destroyed after construction finished. Almost nothing has been saved from the wreck of BP IX. ‘The parts that were recovered are the property of the insurance company because the boat will be considered a total loss. Eventually we’ll buy a few things back from them, but these are only small components like some winches and blocks. It will not save very much,’ added Ronan. ‘Even that we are not sure whether it will be worth it.’ In the meantime Armel Le Cléac’h will compete for the next two
seasons at the helm of the new one-design Figaro 3 (actually also a VPLP design!) and in June his 11th Solitaire Urgo Le Figaro (the
VINCENT CURUTCHET/DPPI
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