hydroptere sailboat

Yachting World

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World’s coolest yachts: Hydroptère

• January 21, 2022

We ask top sailors and marine industry gurus to choose the coolest and most innovative yachts of our times. Pip Hare nominates Hydroptère

“I thought Hydroptère was the most incredible boat for a long time,” says Vendée Globe solo sailor Pip Hare of the groundbreaking 60ft (18m) foiler . “It was the first flying boat we’d ever seen. It crossed oceans and also was going for the 50-knot record.”

The experimental hydrofoil was the brainchild of skipper, helmsman and project founder Alain Thébault, together with design studio VPLP. It was built on principles Thébault proved as early as the Nineties and launched in 2008 – over a decade decade before the Ultimes evolved into the foiling offshore multihull class we know today.

The foiling trimaran Hydroptere DCNS off San Francisco in 2012 with Alain Thabault and crew Jacques Vincent, Yves Parlier, Jean Le Cam and Robert Douglas. Photos: Christophe Launay/DPPI

Hydroptère blasted into the record books shortly after she was launched, grabbing the 500m record for the D Class (44.8 knots) and the nautical mile record (41.6 knots). The team’s ultimate goal was the outright sailing speed record over 500m. In 2009, she pushed this to 52.8 knots, and in the same year set a record of 50.1 knots over a one-mile course.

But that record was in turn pulverised in 2012 by Paul Larsen in Vestas Sailrocket 2 , when he set a new world sailing speed record of 65.5 knots.

Make sure you check out our full list of Coolest Yachts.

Hydroptère stats rating:

Top speed: 56.3 knots LOA: 18m Launched: 2008 Berths: 0 Price: Unknown Adrenalin factor: 100%

Pip Hare is a regular contributor to Yachting World and a hugely experienced experienced coach and solo sailor. She gained wider fame in the 2020-21 Vendée Globe when she raced a 20-year-old IMOCA solo around the world on her first attempt to be first British skipper home. Among the many accolades she received for the achievement, she was named YJA Stoneways Marine  Yachtsman  of the  Year in 2021. She had previously competed in the Mini Transat, and offshore classics such as the OSTAR and Transat Jaques Vabre, and is now campaigning for the 2024 Vendée Globe with a newer, foil-assisted design Medallia . Follow at  www.piphareoceanracing.com

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The epic story of Hydroptère in 8 minutes

The Hydroptere multihull hydrofoil design allows the sail-powered vessel to reach high speeds on water. The design is based on experience from a range of hydrofoil sailcraft that Alain Thébault built in cooperation with the late Éric Tabarly since the Hydroptere story. On October 5, 2008 she reached a record speed of 52.86 knots.

Hydroptere is a French experimental sailing hydrofoil trimaran imagined by the yachtman Éric Tabarly. Hydroptere project was managed by Alain Thébault, the design done by naval architects VPLP design and the manufacturing by a group of French high-tech companies. Its multihull hydrofoil design allows the sail-powered vessel to reach high speeds on water. The design is based on experience from a range of hydrofoil sailcraft that Thébault built in cooperation with Éric Tabarly since the 1980s. On 5 October 2008 she reached a record speed of 52.86 knots (97.90 km/h; 60.83 mph), however this was over a shorter distance than the 500m necessary to qualify for an official world record. On 21 December 2008, the Hydroptere briefly reached 56.3 knots (104.3 km/h; 64.8 mph) near Fos-sur-Mer, but capsized and turtled shortly thereafter.

On 4 September 2009, Hydroptere broke the outright world record, sustaining a speed of 52.86 knots (97.90 km/h; 60.83 mph) for 500 m (1,600 ft) in 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) of wind. In November 2009, she broke the 50-knot (93 km/h; 58 mph) barrier for a nautical mile with a speed of 50.17 knots (92.91 km/h; 57.73 mph) in Hyères, France.

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The Return of l’Hydroptere

• By Ronnie Simpson
• Updated: August 2, 2021

In the sport of sailing in 2021, foiling is all the rage and has completely revolutionized our game. Catamarans have been foiling in the America’s Cup for nearly a decade and have since spawned an entirely new breed of foiling monohull . Partially as a result of these unprecedented investments in foiling technology, the trickle-down has been rapid, widespread and eminently consequential. From the explosion of the foiling Moth dinghy and foiling beach cats and monohulls to the adaptation of hydrofoils on everything from surfboards and SUPs to Vendée Globe solo offshore rockets, kiteboards, and one-design racers—and even some cruising yachts—foiling has touched every aspect of yacht design. However, long before foiling went mainstream, there was one famous French foiling trimaran blazing its own bold path well above the ocean’s surface: l’Hydroptère .

The History

When the 60-foot l’Hydroptère was originally conceived in the 1970s, she more closely resembled a far-fetched futuristic concept of what a racing sailboat might one day look like than an actual boat. Compared with the heavy-displacement keelboats of the day, l’Hydroptère appeared to be something off the TV show The Jetsons . Conceived by the godfather of French offshore racing, Eric Tabarly, the initial concept of l’Hydroptère was simple. With wings riding under the water, the boat could achieve lift and then rise above its surface, thus greatly reducing the boat’s hydrodynamic drag while exponentially increasing its speed potential. Simply put, the idea was to marry sailing and flight; appropriately, l’Hydroptère ’s name is a combination of the Greek word hydros , for water, and the French term, ptère , for wing.

To pioneer the concept of a flying boat isn’t easy, and the many failures—and hard-earned victories—of l’Hydroptère are a testament to this fact. Working in conjunction with the now-dominant design firm VPLP and some of France’s top boatbuilders, project manager Alain Thébault, Tabarly and their collaborators worked through several evolutions of the basic l’Hydroptère concept before building the boat that would eventually crush world sailing speed records, inspire legions of sailors, and become the subject of sailing folklore.

After beginning with a simple wooden version of the concept in 1976 using a Tornado catamaran hull as the main central hull, by the mid-1980s, the team moved on to small, remote-controlled prototypes, followed by a one-man, one-third-scale flying boat by the early 1990s. In 1994, the dream literally took flight when a full-scale prototype was hovering well above the water off the coast of France. But in 1995, while sailing at close to 30 knots of boatspeed, l’Hydroptère suffered the structural failure of a port crossbeam and quickly crashed down to the water’s surface. Fortunately, the boat was salvaged and brought back to port.

Half a dozen years later, in 2001, the fourth and final iteration of l’Hydroptère was launched. Almost immediately after hitting the water, its increased speed potential was evident. In 2005, l’Hydroptère sailed across the English Channel at a sustained average speed of nearly 40 knots, eclipsing Louis Blériot’s first record for flying across the English Channel in an airplane in 1909. Two years later, in April 2007, l’Hydroptère sailed into the record books as the fastest sailboat over both 500 meters and 1 nautical mile, earning its first (but not last) World Sailing Speed Record.

To pioneer the concept of a flying boat isn’t easy, as the many ­early failures proved.

In December 2008, Thébault and his men peaked at more than 56 knots, ­briefly, before breaching l’Hydroptère ’s foils and then immediately pitchpoling into a capsize. Undaunted, the team came back in 2009 stronger than ever and set another World Sailing Speed Record, this time covering 500 meters at an average speed of more than 51.3 knots of boatspeed with a peak of nearly 59 knots; it was an incredible achievement, and marked the first time a boat officially crossed the near-mythical 50-knot barrier for a sustained period of time. Coincidentally, this 50-knot barrier represents the current speed limit for the America’s Cup and Sail GP catamarans. Any faster, and foil ventilation and cavitation begins to rear its ugly head.

Highs and Lows

Entering a new decade in 2010, Thébault and his men secured another injection of funding for an entirely new adventure. With one World Sailing Speed Record firmly in hand, tri now aimed toward an infinitely larger racetrack: the Pacific Ocean. In May 2012, the boat arrived in the port of Long Beach, California, on a container ship to undergo further optimization before embarking on an ambitious record attempt to sail some 2,215 miles to Honolulu, Hawaii. With consistent trade winds and the long, groomed swells of the Pacific, the Transpac Race course was identified as the best potential venue to prove the concept of flying across an ocean—a goal that l’Hydroptère ’s visionary, Tabarly, who had since passed away, had been pursuing since before the early 1980s when he sailed one of the world’s first ocean foilers, Paul Ricard , across the Atlantic and into the record books.

With a crew that included Vendée Globe legends Yves Parlier and Jean le Cam, as well as round-the-world multihull ace Jacques Vincent, l’Hydroptère was well-primed to fly to Hawaii in record time. Unfortunately, the 2012 record attempt was scrapped, and l’Hydroptère was instead moved to the San Francisco Bay area. On the hunt for sponsorship dollars there and in nearby Silicon Valley, l’Hydroptère began preparing for another assault on the Transpac course record the following year in 2013. The record, held by Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson and his crew on board the maxi-trimaran Geronimo, was set at just 4 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes, 37 seconds—certainly a very quick time to cover over 2,000 nautical miles, but it was well within the scope of a big, modern foiling trimaran.

However, the 2013 record attempt was also aborted. Perpetually strapped for cash and seemingly swimming against the tide in many respects, l’Hydroptère wouldn’t set sail for Hawaii until 2015. That year, with meager funds and their high-profile, rock-star sailors back in France, l’Hydroptère crossed the starting line with a crew of lesser-known, less-­experienced sailors. Both the team and the weather window proved suboptimal. Attempting to run downwind in light air, this hydrofoiling reaching monster was relegated to drifting toward the islands at a relative snail’s pace, firmly stuck to the surface of the water. No foiling equals no fun. And certainly no speed record.

After an unsuccessful and embarrassingly slow Transpacific record attempt that took nearly 11 days—well over twice their goal— l’Hydroptère was left unceremoniously tied alongside a dock in Honolulu’s Kewalo Basin. The French program, already severely underfunded, eventually abandoned the tri in Hawaii. After a prolonged spell at Kewalo Basin, she was eventually moved to a state mooring ball in Keehi Lagoon. For most boats, this is akin to receiving a slowly implemented death sentence featuring no shortage of cruel and unusual punishment along the way.

Of all the seedy harbors in the state, perhaps no place is worse than the Keehi Lagoon mooring field. Located right ­beneath the flight path to the ­international airport, Keehi is loud, dusty, smelly and incessantly windy. Notorious for its derelict boats, floating meth labs and gross mismanagement, it’s a place where once-great boats go to die. Way in the back, just astern of the two submerged rigs of a sunken ketch, lay one of the fastest sailboats the world had ever seen, on its own downward spiral toward an ignominious death. To a passionate racing and cruising sailor like me, this was about as sad as it gets

No doubt about it, l’Hydroptère had hit rock bottom. Which meant there was only one way to go: up.

The Dream Renewed

For l’Hydroptère to be rescued and resurrected at this juncture, a savior was required. Luckily for the ­down-and-out vessel, not one but two such souls ­miraculously appeared.

“I had first seen l’Hydroptère several years earlier in Southern California while preparing for a Transpac race, and she certainly piqued my curiosity,” says Chris Welsh of Point Richmond, California. In June 2019, the abandoned l’Hydroptère went up for public auction, and Welsh was on an airplane to Honolulu to look her over more closely and place a bid on the boat. Owner of the Spencer 65 Ragtime— a veteran of more Transpacs than any other boat in history, and not coincidentally purchased from a police auction—Welsh had some history with massive multihulls as well. He owned Steve Fossett’s old maxi-catamaran Playstation , which had been converted to a powerboat named Cheyenne . Welsh clearly wasn’t afraid to take on an ambitious project with a famous and historic old boat. A prominent West Coast yachtsman who also owns Point Richmond’s commercial Sugar Dock ­marina, Welsh had both the resources and the vision to bring a boat like ­ l’Hydroptère back to life.

But he wasn’t the only one.

“It was always in my heart to follow this boat,” Frenchman Gabriel Terrasse says. “I had discovered l’Hydroptère at the Paris Boat Show in 1998, and then I went on the internet to learn more and I could not find anything, so I built a website about the boat. A few months later, the l’Hydroptère team had me build their official web page.” Fast-forward nearly two decades, and Gabriel’s interest in the boat had not dwindled. “In 2016, when the boat was first abandoned and for sale in Honolulu, I thought to buy her, but I was not quick enough. I knew l’Hydroptère had more inside her, more to accomplish, so when I heard that the boat was up for auction in 2019, I flew to Honolulu to buy her.”

The big tri was ­abandoned in a seedy ­harbor, on a sad, downward ­spiral toward death.

The two competing bidders met the night before the auction. “That is when I first met Gabriel,” Welsh says. “We were both there to buy l’Hydroptère . After talking, we shook hands and decided to team up.” This would prove to be the beginning of a very special, if unlikely, friendship. Welsh says, “With my yard in the Bay Area, it would just be so much easier and cheaper to refit the boat there, so we figured out what she needed to make the trip, hired a delivery captain, and then spent most of the summer getting the boat ready to sail back to San Francisco.”

A professional racing sailor on the West Coast, Hawaii and Asia, Mike Price was the delivery skipper tasked with getting l’Hydroptère back across the Pacific. “ At its worst, l’Hydroptère was in very poor shape,” he recalls. “The coffee grinders had been stripped, the clutches and winches were removed, and the steering system, which was hydraulic, was ripped apart on one side but left intact on the other. Someone had bashed in the entry hatch and stolen the chart plotter, GPS and electronics. They left in place most of the hydraulics for the flight-control systems, but the sails and everything else were gone.”

A lesser sailor might’ve walked away, but even in her dilapidated condition, for Price, the sheer brilliance of l’Hydroptère shone through. “Structurally, the boat was very well-intact,” he says. “The hull was built a long time ago, and it was uncharacteristically overbuilt out of carbon. There were no breaks or cracks in the laminate or between structures. Being made completely out of carbon and titanium, everything seemed very solid. The mast and the standing rigging looked fine.”

Even so, before embarking on the trip to California, l’Hydroptère underwent a Honolulu refit that included a new diesel engine, some cobbled-together delivery sails, fresh deck hardware and winches, new backstays, and a lot of new lashings for the sail controls and rigging.

Then, Price says, “we brought a ton of diesel fuel, lashed it down everywhere we could find room, and left on the most benign weather window that presented itself. We had very flat seas and light air for the first 800 miles. We motored for six days at 5 to 6 knots, and it was nice for most of the passage. But it’s a very wet boat! At some point, every piece of electronics crapped out and had to be rewired at sea. The most wind that we ever saw was 25 knots, and we sailed the boat super conservatively with the foils all the way decambered to keep l’Hydroptère firmly in nonfoiling mode. We cruised under jib only when it was windy and made the passage in good shape. But it was something like science fiction, man. What a cool boat!”

Shortly after the boat returned to California, the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of the world to a halt, though this would prove to be a blessing in disguise for the newly reassembled l’Hydroptère team. “It was strangely good fortune that we ended up with five people all stuck together for 90 days,” Welsh says. “We got a lot done because we didn’t have a lot of distractions, so we just made the most of it. We cleaned up the boat and got everything out of it. It needed to be disassembled in a way that you could inventory the condition of things and restore them before putting it back together. In doing so, we were pleasantly surprised that the boat had survived the sun in Hawaii better than we expected.” Unfortunately, due to visa restrictions, Terrasse had to return to France, where he’s pursued new technical partners.

“ L’Hydroptère is a big, tough boat,” Welsh says of the vessel he’s still learning about. “She is not some delicate wallflower that takes 25 guys to run. She was solidly constructed out of carbon and titanium, and is built for real sailing. She’s strong enough to try other foils, and there are some clear pathways to making her lighter. And l’Hydroptère is an interesting platform to move forward with, and there is still potential for some record breaking, particularly with point-to-point passages.”

Likewise, Terrasse insists that there is a lot more left in l’Hydroptère ’s tank and that there remains a world of possibility. “We want to make her fly again,” he says. “To improve her. I’m working on the R&D to make her faster, with new technology. L’Hydroptère was built with 20-year-old technology. With rigid sails (a wing), with new foils for higher speeds, with more weight reduction…. There is a long list of possibilities. We have a big wish list. It is a nice and crazy project!”

Sailors are, by nature, dreamers. It’s one of the qualities that makes this sport so beautiful and keeps us all coming back. As well, the boats themselves, and the adventures that those vessels have inspired, have an uncanny ability to bring people together. From the forward-thinking sailors and engineers who first dreamed up this magnificent flying boat nearly 50 years ago to the unlikely cast of characters who are today bringing it back to life in Northern California and in France, ­ l’Hydroptère has inspired legions of sailing fans for decades and continues to do so to this day. In a world in need of some good news right now, the unlikely renaissance of the world’s first famous flying boat—and the new bridges that have been built as a result—continue to remind us that anything is possible. What will ­ l’Hydroptère ’s next chapter bring? We don’t know. But we can’t wait to find out.

Offshore cruiser and racer Ronnie Simpson is a CW contributing editor.

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This segment is part of the IEEE Spectrum series “ Fastest on Earth .”

TRANSCRIPT:

Susan Hassler: What can you say about a 25-year-old boat that flies? That it’s fast. It’s French! And with an average speed of just above 50 knots—that’s 57.6 miles per hour—it holds the current world speed record for sailing. Giselle Weiss takes us aboard, in Lorient, France.

[cheering sounds, Hydroptère team celebrating in 2009]

Giselle Weiss: Named Hydroptère , the boat is the brainchild of Alain Thébault, a self-titled self-made man who grew up in an orphanage in Lorient, on the Brittany coast. Lorient is where Hydroptère is moored. One promising day in May, Thébault invites me to go for a sail. A dinghy ferries a small group of visitors out to the craft and we scramble aboard.

[splashing, voices]

Giselle Weiss: Hydroptère is a trimaran. Think catamaran with an extra longer hull in the middle. But Hydroptère has something more—a pair of winglike appendages, called “hydrofoils,” under the outrigger hulls. When the wind reaches 12 knots, equivalent to a light breeze, the foils produce enough lift to raise the 6-ton craft. Only the wingtips remain in the water.

[water sloshing]

Giselle Weiss: It was Thébault who piloted Hydroptère to victory in 2009. But today, copilot Jacques Vincent is at the steering wheel. Beside him, other crew members scan the water for clues and adjust the mainsail as the speed picks up, using cranks called “coffee grinders.”

[cranking noises]

Giselle Weiss: Hydroptère supports a maximum of 11 crew members. For races, that means nine on deck and two in the cabin watching the computers that collect data from stress sensors placed all over the boat.

Alain Thébault : Okay! Là, vous pouvez vous mettre en position de basse. On va bientôt décoller!

Giselle Weiss: Thébault tells the guests to duck down. The hulls have risen three meters above the water. The speedometer registers 23 knots. Thébault has compared early trials of Hydroptère on rough seas to being in a washing machine. But today, the ride feels great, as long as I sit still. Thébault himself bounds effortlessly across the trimaran’s trampoline deck like an astronaut on the moon. After about 10 minutes, the boat slows.

Alain Thébault : Donc, là, on va virer. Et on va chercher un peu d’air.

Giselle Weiss: The team fiddles with the sails to chase a little more wind. But the air has calmed. We cruise pleasantly back to harbor.

[quiet sailing sounds]

Giselle Weiss: Thébault began drawing sketches of the boat that would become Hydroptère in the early 1980s. In 1984, at the age of 22, he found his way to champion yachtsman Éric Tabarly and showed him his design. Impressed, Tabarly asked where Thébault was living.

Alain Thébault: I answered, “I’m living in my car!”

Giselle Weiss: Tabarly gave Thébault shelter, encouragement, and friendship. By 1985, Thébault had developed a scale model. The availability of carbon-fiber materials and the aid of the French aeronautical industry helped to advance the project. But hard work, and many failures, lay ahead.

Alain Thébault: When you want to break a record, first you break the boat. We crashed four times! It was a long process, and you need a stone spirit.

Giselle Weiss: A big challenge for Hydroptère is how to balance strength and lightness. In 2008, sailing off the coast of southern France, the boat briefly touched 61 knots—that’s 70 miles an hour—but flipped over and was towed back to shore.

Alain Thébault: The design of the shape of the hydrofoil was not good, and we lost the lift and suddenly we capsized.

Giselle Weiss: Hydroptère went into dry dock for redesign and rebuilding. A year later, the boat raced to victory in the Mediterranean, breaking two world records in the space of three months.

Alain Thébault: For us, it was really great.

Giselle Weiss: Thébault’s next big dream is to break the transatlantic record in 2014. For that, he will need a new boat, now being developed in France. The idea of winged boats goes way back. But none has yet matched Hydroptère . When Thébault was 10, he says, and longing for escape, he had two books: The Little Prince , by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and the Tales of Aladdin .

Alain Thébault: I was dreaming about a flying carpet. Now I’m lucky, because I fly it.

Giselle Weiss: I’m Giselle Weiss.

Music: “La Mer”

Qu’on voit danser le long des golfes clairs

A des reflets d’argent

Des reflets changeants

Sous la pluie….

Susan Hassler: On a program about the fastest things on earth, we’ll note that “La Mer” may be the fastest- written song ever. In 1943, the composer and singer Charles Trénet wrote it in 10 minutes, on toilet paper, en route by train from Paris to the French coast.

Music: “La Mer” continues.

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Hydroptere – The World’s Fastest Sailboat

The world’s fastest sailboat is about to set sail on a voyage to claim the transpacific speed record for a wind-powered vessel.  The Hydroptere sailboat is a marvel of engineering and materials technology, using a carbon composite and titanium frame design that floats up to 15 feet above the water.  To reduce water drag and improve its aerodynamic shape, Hydroptere features a primary central foil and a pair of wings on either side that raise the ship above the surface at cruising speed.  At full sail, the Hydroptere can reach speeds of up to 52 mph, a blinding speed for a sail-driven craft.

The Hydroptere is planning to further its claim as the world’s fastest sailboat on a record-setting transpacific voyage.  It will be traveling from Los Angeles to Honolulu with support ships in the hopes of setting a new high mark for its class.  Hydroptere is currently in Paris, undergoing preparations for its record-setting voyage at the architecture workshop of Jean Nouvel.  It will set out in the weeks ahead under the leadership of Alain Thébault, Jean Le Cam and Yves Parlier.  Bon Voyage, gentlemen!  [photos by Guilain Grenier, via designboom ]

Hydroptere Sailboat Setting Speed Records | Gallery

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Record : "Hydroptère" fastest sailing boat in the world

Andreas Fritsch

 ·  06.09.2009

"Sailing at more than 100 kilometres per hour releases more adrenaline than we've ever experienced before!" said an overjoyed Alain Thébault after setting the record off the French coast near Hyères. The foiling trimaran "Hydroptère" has thus made an impressive comeback after capsizing at the beginning of the year.

Back then, the boat had overturned at full speed and broken the mast, and the team seemed to have fallen far behind in its battle for the world record for the fastest sailing boat. But now everything went perfectly. In 25 knots of wind, with gusts of up to 28 knots, Thébault's team managed an average of 51.36 knots on the 500 metre course required by the World Sailing Speed Council (WSSRC). At times, "Hydroptère" even travelled at 55.5 knots. On the 1 nautical mile course it was still enough for over 48 knots. However, all values still have to be confirmed by the WSSRC.

The previous record was held by kite surfer Alexander Caizergues with 50.57 knots, while the fastest sailing vessel was "Macquarie Innovation" with 50.07 knots. This makes "Hydroptère" only the second vessel ever to break the 50-knot barrier.

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'flying' boat hopes to circle globe in 40 days.

• Skipper of the world's fastest sailing boat will attempt to cross the world in 40 days
• Boat, "Hydroptere," uses foils to lift it out of the water and fly at high speeds
• "Hydroptere" is currently the fastest boat in the world
• Bigger boat "Hydroptere Maxi" being built for circumnavigation attempt

London, England (CNN) -- The captain of a huge "flying" boat that has smashed world records for speed on water now plans to sail round the world in under 40 days.

Frenchman Alain Thebault, skipper of "Hydroptere," a revolutionary sailing boat that looks more like a plane, says his next project is to circumnavigate the globe in half the time of the Jules Verne novel "Around the World in 80 Days."

"My dream is to cross the world in 40 days," Thebault told CNN. "It is a project that is very close to my heart and that I believe in."

"Hydroptere," currently the world's fastest sailing boat, gets its speed from foils, or underwater "wings" that lift the boat and enable it to "fly" several meters above the water.

This innovation, which uses principles similar to those of airplanes, avoids drag and allows the 18- by 24-meter boat to achieve previously unimaginable speeds.

Inventor Thebault started working on the design for "Hydroptere" nearly 25 years ago.

"Many years ago when I said I wanted to make a boat fly people said I was crazy," he told CNN.

Thebault is aware of the dangers of his chosen sport.

In 2008, "Hydroptere" reached extreme speeds of over 60 knots per hour (about 111 km per hour, or almost 70 mph) before dramatically crashing.

"When you sail at very high speeds, around 100 km/hour, the water becomes like a rock," he said. "So yes, it is dangerous.Sailing at very high speeds is similar to high altitude for alpinists -- up there, you have to spend the least time possible."

Thebault and his team rebuilt " Hydroptere " and in late 2009 it became the fastest boat on the planet, traveling at over 50 knots (over 100 km/h) over 500 meters and one nautical mile.

Thebault is currently building a larger version of the boat, "Hydroptere Maxi," to make his attempt at crossing the world in under 40 days.

At 30 by 30 meters, Thebault hopes that "Maxi" will react better in heavy seas and be able to accommodate a group of 10 sailors. He expects "Maxi" to be sea-ready in 2013.

He likened his previous records and the round-the-world attempt to the difference between a 100-meter sprint and running a marathon: "They are completely different, but we want both."

But before all that, the maverick sailor, who admits this project is both his profession and obsession, has another goal: He will attempt to cross the Pacific in three days in 2011.

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Hydroptere – The World’s Fastest Sailboat

• 4 minute read

Inside the Parisian workshop of French architect  Jean Nouvel , Alain Thébault and his teammates jean le cam and yves parlier announced the continuation of the ocean program for  Hydroptere  – the fastest sailing boat in the world. And over the coming weeks, the voyage will attempt to set the record of the transpacific, crossing between Los Angeles and Honolulu.

The world’s fastest sailboat will attempt to achieve one of the greatest feats in the sport by breaking the Transpacific speed record crossing. The state-of-the-art vessel Hydroptere has been dubbed ‘the flying boat’ as it combines leading technology from both the aeronautic and marine industries. French yachtsman Alain Thébault, who designed the experimental boat, is leading the record-breaking attempt from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

The fastest sailing boat of the world combines dream and high technology. This extraordinary sailing boat can fly over oceans at a very high speed combining the leading techniques of the aeronautical and marine industries. Hydroptere is a unique and innovative project, which conveys extremely strong human and technological values. Motivated by passion and daring,  Hydroptere  teams knew how to take advantage from the technological innovations to make a pioneer boat fly and become reliable, combining glide and perfection.

But to understand  Hydroptere , a little review session is necessary! First, an etymological review. In Greek, hydros means “water” and ptère means “wing”. And then a mathematical review, with Archimedes’ principle saying “A body immersed in a liquid is buoyed up by a force (buoyant force) equal to the weight of the displaced liquid.” Thanks to this theory elaborated twenty-five centuries ago by a Greek genius, traditional boats can float but with much resistance to achieve high speeds. It was then necessary to make the boat rise above the sea surface to eliminate this drag by replacing Archimedes’ buoyant thrust by the water’s dynamic lift. This physical phenomenon has been analyzed in detail for the air in the early twentieth century by aeronautical engineers and its application to water (800 times denser than air) is one of the prides of the Hydroptère team. To take off, Hydroptere has “marine wings”, the foils, which are placed under each of the floats of the trimaran. Once the boat reaches 10 knots, these immersed “wings”, deployed at 45 degrees in the water, generate an upward thrust. With the appropriate angle of attack of the foil, the sum of the pressure at the intrados and of the depression at the extrados generates an upward thrust with a reduced drag, which raises the boat like the wing of a plane. This is called the “lift” i.e. the same principle that allows the wings to make a plane take off. Then the hull and the floats of Hydroptere fly five meters above the sea surface. Only 2.5 m² of the boat are in contact with the water and she is able to sail from 20 to 45 knots (from 37 to 83 km/h) in 10 seconds. And same result in the sea and in the air, the higher the speed, the greater the lift.

In theory, everything seems to be very simple. But in practice, the achievement of this incredible project has encountered numerous obstacles. Between the initial model made in 1985 and the first record broken by Hydroptere in 2005, Alain Thébault worked hard during twenty years and fell many times before finding the ideal configuration which allows this technological jewel to fly above the water.

But in the end, they managed to combine opposites: Lightness and robustness. Because the foils must resist pressures twice as high as those exerted on the wings of a jet fighter. To do this, they used composite materials such as carbon fibers impregnated with epoxy and associated with titanium parts. To meet the laws of hydrodynamics, the shape of Hydroptere has been optimized to ensure a greater efficiency of the sails while minimizing as much as possible the air friction on the structure of the sailing boat. The “ papés ”, the brains of the high-tech industry who have been helping Alain from the genesis of the project also equipped the cross beams with huge strain absorbers, inspired by the landing gear of the airliners. They imagined a reversed centreboard, similar to that on the planes and designed absorbers derived from that of the Rafales, which allow the foil to be lifted during a strain peak and then to come back to its original position before the next wave. They also installed on board a hundred sensors which measure the pressures, the twisting or the speed. The data acquired are modelled in a flight simulator to analyze every reaction of the boat and to improve adjustments. They have realized thousands of calculations to reduce the problems of hydrodynamic flow: When Hydroptere reaches 50 knots, the water begins to boil around the foils, which reduces the lift and stability.

Today, thanks to the passion, energy and daring of these worthy successors of Ulysses and Icarus, thanks to the alchemy of science and resourcefulness, marine sensitiveness and cutting-edge technology, Hydroptere is the fastest sailing boat in the world. With the help of, Alain Thébault and his team wish to write a new chapter in this epic between the sky and the sea, with the conquest of the greatest oceanic records.

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Published on July 3rd, 2015 | by Editor

Slow trip for Hydroptere to Hawaii

Published on July 3rd, 2015 by Editor -->

Honolulu, HI (July 3, 2015) – The 60-foot foiling trimaran Hydroptere left Los Angeles on Monday June 22 and has just arrived in Honolulu after a crossing of more than 2215 nautical miles (4102 km). Hydroptere becomes the first flying hydrofoil to make such a significant ocean passage.

The transpacific speed record from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii was not beaten as the weak wind conditions along the route did not allow the trimaran to achieve high cruising speeds. The outright record is 04:19:31:37, set by skipper Olivier de Kersauson (FRA) and crew on the 110-foot trimaran Geronimo in November 2005. The Hydroptere passage took nearly 11 days.

The challenge of this first crossing was of a different nature. Despite clearly unfavorable conditions, Alain Thébault and his crew took the decision to go not to miss a historic encounter. Within a few hours, André Borschberg aboard Solar Impulse, the first 100% solar energy powered aircraft, in turn, will land in Hawaii. An exceptional encounter will take place between two legendary vessels, one powered by the energy from the sun and the other one by that of the wind. Two hightech monsters, two pioneers in their field and a single message: “use clean energy. »

For over 25 years, Alain Thébault has been pursuing his childhood dream: to make sailboats fly. From the first wooden models in the early eighties, to absolute sailing speed records in 2009, Hydroptere became the ambassador of sailboats with hydrofoil technology.

In 2009, the French trimaran became the fastest sailboat in the world with peaks at over 100 km/h on a flat sea. Today it is aboard the same sailboat that Alain Thébault, Jacques Vincent and four American crew members, Don, Joe, Jay and Will just crossed 2,215 nautical miles (4,102 km) in pure ocean conditions.

This ocean crossing is notable as hydrofoil sailboats to date have been confined to high performance on flat water.

“This is a historic moment,” remarked Thébault. “I promised André and Bertrand to be in Hawaii to greet them upon arrival. We knew the wind was going to be weak. The crossing should have been much shorter but from the second day, we were forced to make a major detour far to the south to avoid an impressive debris plate. Without this decision, we would have broken the boat.

“We still made peaks at over 35 knots the first days. It is obviously frustrating but we had to make the choice of reason. We will get back on stand-by in Long Beach as soon as possible. With favorable winds, the current record is within the reach of Hydroptere. However, in any adventure, you need a bit of luck. I am very happy because this year, the Pacific has kindly let us through.”

Team website – Tracking

Note : The transpacific speed record from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii is separate from the 2,225nm Transpac Race record which is 5d 9h 18m 26s, set during the 1997 event by the 86′ maxi cat Explorer.

Tags: Hydroptère , records

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Saving Hydroptere

• By Kimball Livingston
• Updated: November 10, 2020

When we slowed to 22 knots, it felt like sailing in molasses. I had just driven one of the most celebrated boats in the world, L’Hydroptere , at 34 knots. Later, I’d look at 44 and try to imagine what it was like in 2009 to achieve a record-­setting 500-meter run of 52.86. That one, and a nautical-mile record of 50.17 knots, were both set in France. I sailed aboard in California leading up to 2015, when this icon of French speed sailing set off on the classic Transpac course, Los Angeles to Honolulu, only to prove that the route held too many downwind miles for such a specialized machine. Unlike the even more specialized Vestas Sailrocket that eventually took its records away, L’Hydroptere could get around a racing triangle, but that would be awkward. It’s happy only on a reach. In 2015, this was no longer the fastest sailing craft ever, and there was no new Transpac record. Sponsors lost interest. The boat sat. The boat was impounded. The boat baked for five years in tropical sun and then went up for auction. What could possibly go right?

Well, L’Hydroptere ’s situation could come to the attention of a true individual among West Coast sailors, Chris Welsh, who saw development potential and a future in more-manageable point-to-point records. And plenty of yoodles along the way. The choice fits his profile. For 15 years Welsh has been the owner of Ragtime , a unique, hard-chined, plywood, downwind-flying John Spencer design that has been a star—and competitive—for all of its 55 years. Ragtime is iconic in itself. No boat has sailed more Transpacs than Ragtime ’s 15; few have been more successful and none more successfully updated. Its reputation, Welsh says, “hovers somewhere between revered and notorious.” When Welsh took Ragtime back to its birthplace in 2008, that was a national occasion for New Zealand. To round out Welsh’s credentials for going his own way, I’ll add that last year he bought submersible manufacturer Deep Flight out of receivership. Until COVID-19, you could find him touring Asia with one of his submarines slung between the hulls of the derigged giant catamaran Cheyenne , formerly Playstation and holder of trans-Atlantic, 24-hour and round-the-world records. The man has toys, and of course, when he flies around on the West Coast, he pilots his own. L’Hydroptere would not make sense in the hands of just anyone.

When L’Hydroptere went up for ­auction in 2019 in Kihei Harbor, Maui, Welsh says, “I suspected that an auction held on an island in the middle of the Pacific might not draw a lot of bidders.” He got that much right. But he was not quite alone. Enter Gabriel Terrasse, a French IT ­project manager who had history with the boat. Terrasse has been infatuated with L’Hydroptere since sighting a photograph at the 1997 Paris Boat Show, and he was part of the team during the glory years. He was out to save the boat “somehow—I could not let it go.”

So, what are the odds? Terrasse and Welsh sat down the night before the auction, discovered they had ­complementary ­qualifications, and agreed they would make better partners than competitors. The upfront cost was nothing compared with what it would take to get the boat sailing again, and then it would need much, much more work to become mission-ready. And Welsh (did I mention?) owns a boatyard on the shores of San Francisco Bay with a very hefty crane. Terrasse has access to all the people who had contributed to the boat’s history “as a human adventure and an engineering adventure.” They would need all of that and more.

“Before the auction, I had already made attempts to find another harbor where I would be able to work on the boat,” Terrasse says. “That proved impossible. A mooring in Kihei Harbor was going to be the best I could do, and I could see it was going to be hard, but then along came Chris. I know now that without him, it wouldn’t have been hard; it would have been a nightmare.”

Truth to tell, these two rescued each other from stepping into quicksand. The boat was nonfunctional. The main had been left on the boom “and birds were nesting in it, and of course, it was toast,” Welsh says. “At one point, Gabriel and I were sitting in the harbormaster’s office with a to-do list and a new motor waiting to be installed through a hatch that was too small for it, and they were telling us we were taking too long. They had no concept of what it means to send a boat to sea, and they just wanted this thing gone. They threatened to impound it again in 72 hours [and break it up for scrap]. Gabriel saved us by getting the French Consul involved. Thanks to the Consul and his understanding of the boat’s place in the pantheon of French ­sailing craft, we had a new lease on life.”

Not that working on the boat on a mooring was ever easy, nor was Maui the center of the universe when it came to shopping for L’Hydroptere parts. Terrasse spent the summer of 2019 working with Welsh’s people, and eventually the boat was ready enough for a 15-day crossing to San Francisco Bay. “She came home on a delivery main and a jib from Ragtime ,” Welsh says. “With a mast 25 feet taller than Ragtime ’s, that makes about a 35 percent main.” The new motor gave out with an impeller issue, so as the boat neared the coast and winds shut down, Welsh set out in his Protector with Terrasse aboard to tow L’Hydroptere to its new base in the East Bay, the boatyard known as Sugar Dock.

There in 2020 I found her again, this time in parts, a mostly-good-news story that had begun as the dream of Éric Tabarly, a man whose place among French sailors is closer to deity than mere legend. After Tabarly’s death at sea, the mantle fell to another member of the development team, Alain Thébault, to guide the project through to speed records and a legendary status of its own. “Every time L’Hydroptere was in the water, she was in the news,” Terrasse says. “Sports news. Science news.” Welsh adds: “Gabriel has done a special job of inspiring the leading figures of French sailing to align with us and care about what we’re doing. And there’s a connection. Tabarly was a boyhood hero of mine. When I won the 2008 Los Angeles to Tahiti Race with Ragtime , I was awarded the same trophy that he had won with Pen Duick III in 1972. When I had a win in the Sydney Hobart Race a year later, I was awarded the same trophy that Tabarly won in his time. It’s rather strange and wonderful.”

At the Sugar Dock, the real work got underway, providing a focus for life under pandemic lockdown. The dock has space but not enough for a complete L’Hydroptere on the hard, so the boat was dismantled in the water. The various components polished up nicely, but they did not come apart without a struggle. Welsh says: “The boat is put together with universal pin connectors. Pins hold the dog ears that lock the frame to the amas, and they were solidly corroded in place. No one five years ago imagined it would be this long before they came out. To get them out we used sledges, hydraulics, dry ice and patience —lots of patience.”

Terrasse adds, “We spent a week apiece on some of them, to not damage the boat.” Welsh continues: “They’re off-the-shelf items, so it’s no problem to replace them. The boat will go back together a lot more easily than it came apart.”

But it won’t be the same L’Hydroptere that left California for Hawaii, and that is why there’s a story to tell.

“The boat can be faster,” Terrasse says. “It’s a good platform for developing high-speed foils and for using ground effect. The AC boats are using ground effect. It’s very important to their design. “ L’Hydroptere is 78 feet wide. That’s a lot to work with.” Along that line, Welsh says: “It’s 78 feet of beam—think about it. The structure has never been optimized to generate lift to take some of the weight of the boat. It’s just been pushed through the air.”

Going forward, there are two levels of ambition. First, Welsh says, “I just want to go sailing.” To make that happen with a set of faster features that can be mustered by “mere mortals,” Welsh and Terrasse intend to start with aerodynamics: fairing the beams, housing the crew in bobsled-style cockpits, and improving efficiencies aloft by adding 3D sails. Perhaps that means hard sails, perhaps inflated sails, perhaps sleeving the mast. There’s a lot to ponder, but with that much done, Welsh believes, the boat will be ready for point-to-point record attempts.

Beyond that, and this is where Terrasse really lights up, L’Hydroptere could be a platform for pushing the envelope. The possibilities are dazzling to anyone susceptible to an engineering adventure, but how quickly these things come, or if at all, will depend upon sponsorship. Suddenly we’re talking in-depth research, high-end fabrication, and money to support the project through risks of failure. CAD simulation has come a long way since the boat’s early breakages, but bleeding edges tend to bleed.

It’s a tantalizing prospect, for example, to imagine incorporating super-cavitating foils to operate in the realm above 50 knots, where standard foils develop vapor-inducing low pressure and lose their bite. The concept has been around for decades and applied in high-speed propellers, but a sailing hydrofoil would have to transition from a shape that develops lift on one surface (at lower speeds) to the opposite surface (at higher speeds). There has been plenty of technical speculation on how to accomplish that, but no one has solved it at a practical level. Terrasse and Welsh have ideas specific to L’Hydroptere —but. Before tackling super-cavitating foils, it would be expensive but not hard to build lighter passive foils with lower drag than the ­existing passive foils that, frankly, are Jurassic leftovers. It would be even more expensive, and harder, to try actively managed T-foils, and then fly-by-wire. Terrasse says, “Maybe we should build a wing for pure speed work and keep this rig for offshore sailing.” And ­modify it for active canting and…

Dreamers gotta dream. First, simplify things and just go sailing. Frozen pins were not the only challenge in disassembly. There were mysteries. “We relied on Gabriel and his connections,” Welsh says. “We’d be doing something by day, and he’d be doing research by night, chasing answers as to how the next thing came apart, maybe coming up with drawings because he knows the people. The critical path is the overhaul of the struts. They’re built like aircraft parts. They’re aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber, and we’ll rebuild mostly as-is but with better aerodynamics. Redesigning for ground effect—we can save that for later.”

There’s a chance L’Hydroptere could be sailing by winter, and whether it is or not, one unknown is where. In California, Welsh figures, the boat could make it from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 10 to 11 hours by picking a weather window. “And we could probably do the Newport to Ensenada Race in two and a half hours, but we might have to sail 50 races before we got ‘that’ day. I don’t know if the boat will stay in California long enough for any of that. If we get a sponsor who’s interested, we’ll go to the America’s Cup in New Zealand and fly on the Waitemata when the wind exceeds the limit for the AC75s. As much as anybody, I miss the chess match of the keeled monohulls, but today’s unbridled advancements are fascinating. I’ve already told you we want to turn the fuselage into a wing, and that development is very much in play at the next AC—how the fuselages deal with drag and ground effect. That’s going to determine this Cup match, not the foils.

“ L’Hydroptere has a future with or without sponsorship,” Welsh says, “and with or without going to Auckland. Eventually the boat belongs in Europe, again, hunting point-to-point records in the Med and maybe looking for a 24-hour record. It’s startling how much response Gabriel has received. In America there might be a thousand people who know L’Hydroptere . In France there might be a thousand people who don’t.”

One question hangs in the air: What would Tabarly do?

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l’Hydroptère DCNS Hydrofoil Sailboat

l'Hydroptère is a hydrofoil-based experimental trimaran designed by Alain Thébault, a French yachtsman who is also the boat's captain. She officially became the world's fastest sailboat in November 2009, by breaking the outright nautical mile record. Approved by World Speed Record Council (WSRC), she recorded an average speed of 50.17kt over one nautical mile.

Hydrofoil-based trimaran

Construction Started

Maximum average speed, length overall.

l’Hydroptère is a hydrofoil-based experimental trimaran designed by Alain Thébault, a French yachtsman who is also the boat’s captain. She officially became the world’s fastest sailboat in November 2009, by breaking the outright nautical mile record. Approved by World Speed Record Council (WSRC), she recorded an average speed of 50.17kt over one nautical mile.

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The boat’s name ‘l’Hydroptère’ was derived from two Greek words: hydro and pteron, which mean water and wing respectively. In January 2012, DCNS, a French naval defence company and one of Europe’s leading shipbuilders, became the ship’s sponsor and consequently her name was changed to l’Hydroptère DCNS.

In August 2012, the sailboat arrived in San Francisco Bay to participate in America’s Cup World Series race.

History of l’Hydroptère

The conceptualisation of l’Hydroptère dates back to 1975 when late Éric Tabarly (July 1931 – June 1998), a famous French yachtsman and an officer in the French navy, was told about viability of such a project.

In 1983, Alain Thébault took over the project. With Éric Tabarly’s guidance, he was able to build a model of the boat in 1985 and sailed it on the Grand Canal at the Château of Versailles, France. In 1992, Alain was able to get support from DCNS, Aérospatiale, Dassault and the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard. They all decided to become a part of the project.

Construction of the boat commenced in 1993, with DCNS manufacturing the hull. It was completed in 1994 and in her maiden flight, l’Hydroptère was able to achieve a speed of 28kt.

The ship was taken out of action in 1998 after one of her hydrofoils was torn away. The incident occurred when she was trying to break the speed record for 24 hours. She returned to the water two years later after being fitted with a new hydrofoil. She was also armed with a 3D flight simulator.

Design of the experimental trimaran

The l’Hydroptère DCNS project was made possible by combining aeronautical and marine techniques. The three-hulled trimaran can fly five meters above the surface of water. In flight mode, the boat’s contact area with water is reduced to 2.5m 2 .

The boat’s take off is attained by her hydrofoils, which are fitted underneath each of the outrigger hulls. These are angled at 45° in water and give an upward thrust as soon as the boat reaches 10kt speed. The thrust that makes the ship to rise above the surface of water is produced due the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of the foil. The lift increases with the increase in speed. The ship can reach a speed of 45kt from 20kt in ten seconds.

The ship’s hydrofoils or wings are made of titanium coated carbon fibre to make them stand against powerful stresses. The boat’s optimised shape, which was attained by applying aerodynamic principles, ensures that she gets maximum efficiency from her sails and at the same time keeps the wind-resistance to a minimum.

l’Hydroptère DCNS specifications and speed

Related project, .adastra superyacht, zhuhai, china.

Adastra is a trimaran-type superyacht built by McConaghy Boats for Hong Kong-based shipping baron Anto Marden. The 42.5m (140ft) superyacht has been designed by UK-based John Shuttleworth Yacht Designs.

The overall length of the boat is 22.48m. The beam is 24m and draft (while in water) is 3.5m. The ship’s draft is reduced to 2m while flying. The length of outrigger hulls is 6.7m, while the length of each hydrofoil is 5.7m. The boat’s weight is 7.5t.

The mast is 28m tall. Gennaker area and mainsail area of the sails are respectively 315m 2 and 185m 2 in size.

The trimaran requires about 12kt of stabilised speed to take off. Her speed is approximately two times that of wind; in other words the boat cruises at 30kt with 15kt of established speed. Maximum speed of the boat is 56kt and maximum average speed on one nautical mile is 50.17kt.

Contractors and suppliers involved in the hydrofoil trimaran project

Van Peteghem Lauriot-Prévost (VPLP), a French naval architectural company, and HDS were the main architects of l’Hydroptère DCNS.

The central hull of the boat was manufactured by DCNS Lorient, while floats and crossbeams were built by shipyards Decision and Airbus Nantes respectively. Foils and rudder were built by B & B and Airbus Nantes, and mast by Lorimat. Strain absorbers were provided by Legrand & Revigny.

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l’Hydroptère: the fastest sailing boat on the planet

09/2009 –

l’ Hydroptère : the fastest sailing boat on the planet 51.36 knots, the new absolute speed record over 500 meters (subject to ratification from the WSSRC).

On friday Sept. the4th,   l’ Hydroptère established the new absolute sailing speed record over 500 meters in Hyères harbour (subject to ratification from the WSSRC). By a 28- knot west wind , Alain Thébault and his crew took full advantage of the flying trimaran’s potential and earned the title of the fastest sailing craft on the planet. With a top speed of 55.5 knots (103 km/h) and an average speed of 51.36 knots, today l’ Hydroptère takes her place in the history of sailing.

After the attempts in 2008 ( read also our article ), only one day in 2009 was enough for Alain Thébault and his crew, Anders Bringdal, Jean-Mathieu Bourgeon, François Cazala, Damien Colegrave, Stéphane Dyen, Matt Hodgson, Jérémie Lagarrigue, Pierre Trémouille, Gérard Navarin and Jacques Vincent to fine-tune l’ Hydroptère and beat this record.

After this tremendous success, l’ Hydroptère team is alreday dreaming of new projects. Sailing at the helm of the boat configured as before for open seas and taking on long distance records is clearly the team’s most immediate challenge. Thus l’ Hydroptère is the only sailing boat capable of beating the absolute sailing speed record and of sailing in open seas.

Photo Credit: Gilles Martin Raget

– CP –

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Monday 31st May 2021, the launch ceremony of the new RSY 38m EXP took place in the presence of the owners and their family, in full compliance with the COVID measures, which did not hinder the important operations of launching a new boat.

• MarineMax acquires Cruisers Yachts 3 May 2021
• Postponement of Voiles d’Antibes 2021 from June to September 27 February 2021
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Concepts & Prototypes: A Flying Boat

By Dawn Stover

Posted on Jul 11, 2010 8:53 PM EDT

4 minute read

The team behind the world’s fastest sailboat—l’Hydroptère, a 78-foot trimaran that sailed at a record-breaking 50-plus knots (nearly 58 mph) for more than a nautical mile last year—is designing a new model to break another big racing record. With l’Hydroptère Maxi, a crew 0f 10 hopes to sail around the world in less than 48 days and eight hours, beating the current fastest time as set by the French crew of Groupama last March.

The Maxi’s skipper, Alain Thébault, who has been creating high-speed sailboats for 25 years, has assembled a team that includes advisers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and aeronautical engineers. Like l’Hydroptère, whose name comes from the Greek words for water and wing, l’Hydroptère Maxi will be part boat and part plane. At slower speeds, it will glide through the water like a conventional trimaran, floating on a center hull flanked by two stabilizing hulls. But at faster speeds, submerged finlike hydrofoils attached to the bottom of the side hulls act like airplane wings, forcing water over the curved top surface of the foils to lift the hull up to 33 feet above the water. With no drag acting on the hulls, the boat essentially flies across the ocean.

Breaking the record, not to mention keeping the crew safe, rests on the perfect design of the foils and hulls. If the wings snap in rough weather or the hulls suddenly smack into the water, the boat could take a nosedive. “Flying in waves can be dangerous,” says lead designer Jean-Mathieu Bourgeon. Another big challenge is making the boat as light as possible without sacrificing too much strength, to maximize speed and safety in both floating and flying modes.

Thébault and his group will spend the next year designing l’Hydroptère Maxi, including testing scale models of the foils in computer simulators. If all goes as planned, the crew could set sail as early as 2013, possibly starting in Europe and heading south through the Atlantic Ocean to circle Antarctica.

Centerboard

When the wind speed is low—less than 15 knots—the crew deploys a centerboard [not shown] and raises the foils out of the water, switching the boat from flying to floating mode.

Crew Controls

Using real-time measurements from stress sensors, GPS and an inertial unit, which measures factors such as roll, pitch and speed, the crew can adjust the boat accordingly for the most efficient sailing.

Crossbeams made from lightweight carbon and titanium connect the central hull to two side hulls. Blueprints for hydrofoil trimarans date back to the 1950s, but not until the advent of composite materials could engineers build strong enough crossbeams to support boats as large as the Maxi.

Unlike the foils on most multihull racing boats, which reduce drag but do not raise the boat completely out of the water, Maxi’s underwater wings lift it up to 33 feet above the ocean’s surface.

Maxi has two rear tail units for better balance when elevated on its foils.

Video Imaging

The team will use video cameras to film sail behavior, crossbeam deformation, and how far the foils are immersed in water under various conditions. Computer models are then refined to predict how the boat will behave under even more extreme conditions.

Stress Testing

Researchers will outfit a prototype of l’Hydroptère Maxi with strain gauges, accelerometers, and pressure and rotation sensors. Computer simulations will use the data to help designers understand the behavior of the boat as a whole and push the design to its physical limits. This example shows stress distribution [red indicates areas that deform most under pressure].

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THE HIGH SPEED ADVENTURE to innovate and communicate

2 exceptional visibility supports.

2 prestigious flying sailboats to carry your colors to a very large B2B and B2C audience: - L'Hydroptère, the world's fastest open sean sailboat (55.5 knots or 102.8 km/h), at the crossroads of aeronautics, naval engineering and offshore racing. - L'Hydroptère.ch, a high-tech hydrofoil catamaran, one of the fastest sailing boats in Switzerland.

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L'HYDROPTERE 2.0 offers you to embark your R&D (Research and Development) projects on board 2 prestigious platforms: L'Hydroptère and L'Hydroptère.ch.

We take on board the projects of companies and consortiums to enable them to develop, test and mature their innovations in extreme real-life conditions. With our multidisciplinary team of experts, you can benefit from an environment that is conducive to a rapid rise in TRL (Technology Readiness Level), boost your teams and your R&D, and give your innovations worldwide visibility.

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L’HYDROPTERE 2.0 is an exceptional opportunity to interconnect and mobilize companies, research laboratories, schools & universities, talents and to build together innovative and disruptive R&D projects that contribute to decarbonization while being economically viable.

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