News Around the World
Tripon, winner of the last Route du Rhum in this class, who is sailing Les P’tits Doudous assisted by Benoît Marie, a foiling Moth expert. However, their dismasting in the last round of the Pro Sailing Tour has hindered their preparation for the Transat. We must also mention Gilles Lamiré who has teamed up with a certain Yvan Bourgnon, who knows quite a lot on the multihull side. This fleet should be close between the new and older but well-
optimised models. The new boats will still be improving in reliability and learning by their crews. ‘It will take some time for Arkema 4 and Koezio to hit full potential,’ said the class president. When I reply that his own huge experience of the Ocean Fifty is a real advan- tage, he says: ‘Yes, but Sam (Goodchild) has freshness and youth!’ But Sam ‘the Brit’ remains very cautious about his chances of
victory because he recognises his opponents’ greater experience of racing the Multi Fifty offshore double-handed, even solo-handed…
Gitana 17 is the boat to beat The Queens of the Sea are back on the TJV. Since Thomas Coville’s victory in 2017 on his previous boat, ahead of the current Gitana 17, we had not seen the giant trimarans in Le Havre. With the arrival of two new boats, the Banque Populaire XI of
Armel Le Cléac’h/Kevin Escoffier and SVR-Lazartigue sailed by François Gabart and Tom Laperche, we will have an exciting match between the five fastest ocean-sailing boats in the world, including Sodebo 3 and Actual Leader, the ex-Macif… with the exception of Idec Sport whose skipper Francis Joyon chose in preference to the wintry weather of Le Havre the Alizean sweetness and the conquest of a record on the Route de la Découverte. On paper Maxi Edmond De Rothschild (the so-called Gitana 17)
is the favourite. It has to be said that the Verdier design launched in 2017 has evolved considerably in four years to the point of becom- ing a real weapon in the hands of Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier. This summer she secured her second consecutive win in the Fastnet Race – by a much bigger margin than in 2019. Over time the big flying boat has increased in reliability and performance, taking a further big jump with the recent addition of new appendages. It should be noted that these three-hull giants now fly upwind
consistently and maintain speeds over 30kt over very long periods of time. But resisting the impact of the waves sailing so fast is a real technological test, nor of course are the Ultims exempt from being damaged by colliding with a UFO. This summer Gitana hit a floating object at more than 30kt,
damaging the central hull as well as the foils, forcing the crew back to Lorient. ‘We felt a shock, first on the centreboard and then a pretty brutal second strike on the central rudder. Everything happens very quickly and it’s a complicated task to identify the issues, but this impact was very violent,’ explained Charles Caudrelier. In the crash the central rudder stock was ripped off, resulting in the loss of the appendix and structural damage to the adjacent structure. It was then a real race against the clock for the boat to be at the start of the Rolex Fastnet Race. Victory was all the more tasty! Then at the end of September, while training offshore with the
other Ultims out of the Centre d’Entraînement de Port La Forêt, Gitana collided once again and very brutally with what is suspected to be a cetacean. The incident damaged a foil on the giant blue and white trimaran and caused another premature return to her base in Lorient. Two other TJV Ultims also have a great number of miles under
their foils, starting with Actual Leader, the ex-Macifon which François Gabart set a singlehanded record around the world and won many other races. Yves Le Blévec, her new skipper, has a lot of experience of the Maxi multihull and benefits from a proven boat designed by VPLP: the lightest in the fleet and the easiest to handle two-handed with his team mate Antony Marchand. Actual does not have the power of the new-generation boats with
their ever larger foils, but she could exploit to her advantage the transition zones that are a big feature of the Ultim course, this time with two crossings of the Doldrums. Sodebo Ultim 3 was launched in March 2019 after 20 months of hard work by the Sodebo design office, led by Yves Mignard, to
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integrate a design team composed of nine individual groups of specialists covering hull drawings, beam engineering, appendices, sails, structural calculations, mechanical, hydraulic, electronic equipment and so on! Then, within the Multiplast yard in Vannes, to direct the assembly of a puzzle as large as four tennis courts, whose pieces come from both Brittany and Italy. Recognisable by her manoeuvring cockpit located in front of the
main beam, the latest Sodebo was launched in a configuration for the then soon expected singlehanded round-the-world race, that is to say with fixed rudders and no skate wing: an elevator located down the main centreboard. After the solo world tour was postponed until 2023 Sodebo 3
made a Jules Verne Trophy attempt simultaneously with Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, but she had to give up not because of a collision with a UFO but because of the failure of the flying (fixed) windward rudder which did not withstand the assault of the waves. After that it was decided to add retractable rudders to the floats – to protect the appendages and improve reliability. The new rudders are also deeper than the previous ones to better manage the plat- form’s longitudinal attitude and thereby improve performance. The crew of Sodebosaid they were satisfied when finishing a last-minute Azimut Challenge just behind the new Banque Populaire XI. Kevin Escoffier believes that BP XI, launched at the end of April,
is more efficient and safer than BP IX (which broke up and sank during the 2018 Route du Rhum) by offering better stability upwind. ‘She is also easier, accelerates very fast and makes maintaining a high average speed rather easy…’ Due largely to a lower CoG compared to her predecessor, but also a much greater fore-and- aft span between the rudders and the huge foils which are much further forward than before. For the TJV the new Banque Pop’s preparation is about reliability
and control on the big flying trimaran. It is not until 2022 that the performance development of the VPLP design will actually begin. Caution is also the watchword for François Gabart, whose new
boat SVR-Lazartigue hit the water for the first time in July. She is undoubtedly the most aerodynamic of the Ultims with her covered cockpit and her stealth look. The brand new VPLP Ultim has already peaked at 47kt in trials and averaged 42kt for more than one hour… which says quite a lot about her potential. ‘The boat is good, we are very satisfied, there is potential but we have a lot of work left to be ready for the coming races,’ François Gabart told us. His team-mate Tom Laperche added: ‘This trimaran has huge
potential, for sure. But these big boats need a little time to mature in terms of reliability, performance and settings. It takes at least one or two years to be successful, rather two...’ In a complex Ultim reliability and development take time. On the
eve of their first transatlantic race, on a tricky course, the ‘old age’ Ultims have the blessings of bookmakers.
Franck Cammas – co-skipper of Gitana 17 Seahorse: Two collisions in two months with a supposed cetacean! That is a lot!! Franck Cammas: It is, too much! In each incident the Pinger (sound pulse transmitter to alert mammals) was operating correctly but apparently that is not enough. As for the Oscar camera at the head of the mast, unfortunately it does not see underwater. At the end of September a gate was established for our offshore
training course (about 1,000nm) to make sure we cross the cetacean migration zone at the least dense location, at the edge of the continental shelf about 150nm from the coast of Brittany. It wasn’t enough! In this case the collision happened at about 22kt, a slow speed for us, but it was very brutal and I was afraid for my co-skipper Charles Caudrelier who was manoeuvring a sail on the foredeck in the darkness. SH: What are the latest changes to Gitana 17? FC: We changed the rudders, the skate wing, and new foils have just been delivered. The aim is to push the limits of the boat which are now being constrained by cavitation of the appendices and by the resulting drag. The (centre) skate wing was cavitating first but
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