Trimaran project is intended to showcase multihull news with a focus on racing, build projects, launchings, interesting ideas past and present and also updates on my own trimaran projects. Lots of content and updates to come so keep checking back.
Building on strong foundations, the new 2013 Corsair gathering is expected to be
a new step in the right direction: Putting the show on the road!
It is
with great pride that Corsair is now working with its western american dealers
in order to reach out to the owners on that side of the continent. The American
Corsair family is wide and we now have an event that will, sooner or later,
reach all of them!
The Corsair US Nationals is more than just racing, it
is a family get together where no one is left behind. We have activities for the
racers, but also the cruisers; A range to fit the whole family!
On Saturday morning the Luna Rossa AC72 sailed for the first time in San Francisco in the bay where the Louis Vuitton Cup and America’s Cup regattas will take place starting July 7th.
After an early morning roll out, Luna Rossa sailed in light winds (3 knots) that increased up to 12 and allowed the crew to carry out an extensive number of manoeuvres.
The training session lasted about three hours.
Yesterday the America's Cup Review Committee, set up after the fatal incident involving another AC72, Artemis Racing (SWE), recommended that teams should not sail their AC72's or AC45's for another week. No reasons were published for the recommendation. Clearly the reasons, if any, given to the teams were not sufficiently compelling to prevent the Italians from proceeding with their intended sailing program.
A chance
meeting at the Monaco Grand Prix between one of sailing's biggest stars and one
of the leading names in Formula 1 has resulted in a plan aimed at
revolutionising off-shore racing.
They got chatting. Thompson revealed his love of F1 and Gascoyne, then
running the technical side of Caterham's F1 team before his recent move
upstairs, his life-long passion for sailing.
Gascoyne took Thompson on a tour of the pits. They hit it off, and so started
the relationship that has led to the launch of the Caterham Challenge team, an
attempt to bring F1 technology, know-how and practices to sailing.
Ian Farrier has posted an update on f-boat.com that shows the new production F-22 trimaran in a nearly complete state, looks great and only a mast and trailer required to complete.
The Defi St Malo Agglo team have purchased the Multi50 trimaran formerly Prince de Bretagne and have released some photos of the boat in it's new paint scheme.
Thanks to the GC32 team's most recent press release on 16/05/2013
Successful debut at the Great Cup
From drawing board to its first regatta has taken just 16 months for the new Martin Fischer-designed GC32 catamaran. Last week the first three boats and six crews took part in the GC32 Austria Cup, part of Allianz Traunsee Week.
All of this has come to pass because Amsterdam-based French businessman Laurent Lenne was looking to trade up from his F18 catamaran. After finding nothing to his taste on the market, he ambitiously decided to create not only a new boat but also The Great Cup, the tailor-made circuit for the new catamarans. Having commissioned Fischer, the all-carbon fibre GC32s have been built at Premier Composites in Dubai, with Australian catamaran expert, Andrew Macpherson, COO of The Great Cup, project managing it.
Comparisons will obviously be made to the Extreme Sailing Series, but the Great Cup is aimed more at private owners and the intention is for it to be less globe-trotting, modelled more on conventional circuits with local fleets dotted around the world, meeting occasionally for international championships, as the Melges and Farr 40 classes do.
Designer Martin Fischer describes one of the many aspects of the new catamaran’s concept: “The GC32 was designed so it can go on a trailer and you can tow it to a race with a crew of four in one car - that brings the costs down a lot. I think it is a good boat for private owners who like sailing, but it could equally be interested for small companies to sponsor, because it is big enough to have some impact.”
Fischer is best known for his groundbreaking F18 designs such as the Capricorn, Wild Cat and Phantom as well being an integral to Franck Cammas’ Groupama design team, specialising in particular in foils [he holds a PhD in fluid dynamics]. As a result it comes as no surprise that the GC32 features the very latest in multihull foil design.
GC32s are fitted with L-shaped foils on their rudders and ‘double S’ foils for daggerboards. The ‘double S’ curvature allows the daggerboard, when fully deployed, to be principally vertical, countering leeway upwind. Raising the board slightly and not only does its area decrease, but thanks to the board’s S-shape, it angles inboard, increasing its vertical lift for sailing downwind.
Like the Extreme 40 (and unlike the AC45), the GC32 boards are symmetric and both are kept down while racing. However, uniquely the pitch of the boards can be altered by +/-3deg. Pull the foil back in marginal conditions and the hull will be encouraged to leap out of the water. But – and this is where the GC32s are particularly groundbreaking – it is also possible to crank forward the top of the board in the weather hull, causing the board to pull downwards (as if there were more crew on the rail). This feature is one that is something specifically prohibited on AC72s.
For the crews competing at the GC32 Austria Cup at Allianz Traunsee Week, these ground breaking features took some getting used to.
Taking part were the first three GC32s (a fourth was en route, but didn’t make it in time), sailed by six crews, with sailors present from 11 nations. Thus boats were being shared: Laurent Lenne’s own SPAX Solutions Sailing Team was being campaigned by Lenne and his crew as well as the Firefly crew, steered by Olympic Tornado sailor Pim Nieuwenhuis. Boat three has been bought by Swiss Olympic Star Flavio Marazzi who shared it with former Match Racing World Champion and Volvo Ocean Race sailor, Adam Minoprio. The second boat was being chartered to local Austria sponsor AEZ, with a team led by former Tornado World Champion Andreas Hagara (elder brother of Roman) and a second sailed by the Austrian Red Bull Youth America’s Cup Team, skippered by 22-year-old Max Trippolt.
Unfortunately just metres into the very first ever race of The Great Cup, SPAX Solution Sailing Team developed a fault that would keep them out of the competition for two days. Despite this the opening day of racing down in Ebensee, at the southern end of Lake Traunsee, showed the GC32s at their full potential, with enough wind to hull fly easily.
The one design catamarans were also closely matched, the tightest race being between AEZ GC32 Youth Sailing Team and Flavio Marazzi’s Marwin, when the two boats crossed the finish line overlapped. “It was really great, amazing,” said 22-year-old AEZ skipper, Max Trippolt. “It shows that it is only finished when it is finished and not before.”
With only two boats, Thursday saw the six teams effectively match racing and in this there was no surprise when former Match Racing World Champion Adam Minopro came out on top, despite this being the Kiwi helmsman’s first ever catamaran regatta.
Finally on Friday the vital replacement part for SPAX Solution Sailing Team arrived and the third GC32 was relaunched ready for racing. For the remainder of the event action on the water was to take place off the Allianz Traunsee Week regatta centre at the north of the lake in Gmunden.
Back up to a full complement of boats, the first race of the day saw Flavio Marazzi’s crew dominate leaving SPAX Solutions and AEZ GC32 Team Austria jockeying for second, Laurent Lenne’s Dutch team rolling the Austrians at the leeward gate only for Hagara’s crew to relieve SPAX Solution of second on the finish line. Unfortunately after two races, racing was postponed for the day.
Making up for this, Saturday turned into ‘big Saturday’ with a long day on the water off Gmunden with racing held in overcast, occasionally rainy conditions with the wind typically a margin hull flying 6-10 knots. A massive 14 races were run, six from the Round Robin started the previous day, followed by another full round robin of eight races, carrying a 2x co-efficient. Once again demonstrating how equal not only the boats were, but the teams too, over the 14 races, each of the six teams won at least once. This included Laurent Lenne and his SPAX Solution Sailing Team, impressive given that this was Lenne’s first ever regatta in a catamaran bigger than an F18.
“We didn’t have anything to think about with the organisation today,” Lenne admitted, pleased with his first ever bullet in the boat he created.
But while they dropped a race in the morning, after a big day on the water it was Adam Minoprio and his team that edged into the lead overall, unbeaten throughout the second round robin.
In marginally improved conditions for the final day, the race committee attempted to speed through another eight races in a third, this time triple points scoring, round robin, only to get half way through before the weather closed in. Continuing his winning streak was Adam Minoprio and it was the Kiwi and his team which ended up claiming the first ever event of The Great Cup. Minoprio and his team were presented with their trophy on the main stage by the water in Gmunden before being deservedly dowsed in champagne.
“I came here to try my best,” said Minoprio. “I am a little surprised I won this being my first time in catmarans. I am pretty happy with the speed at which I learned to sail these boats fast around the track. The guys I had sailing with me with put in a big effort.”
The Kiwi match racer is becoming a cat convert: “It is definitely a whole lot of fun. The GC32 is a great boat, very nice to sail. It gets up and flies a hull in 6 knots of wind and you can zoom around a track. All in all it is a great package.”
After three Olympic Star campaigns for Switzerland, Flavio Marazzi is also now hooked on the GC32. “It was a really great experience with six teams. The boats are very equal, it is hard to be always be on top,” he said.
The regatta not only proved the competitive nature of the GC32 as a one design, but demonstrated its speed despite its potentially draggy foils, even in tricky marginal conditions where it was difficult at times to fly a hull.
“I am pretty proud of what we have achieved in the last five days,” commented Lenne after the prizegiving. “Everyone worked very hard and every day we were doing things better.”
While Allianz Traunsee Week is organised by a Austrian sports marketing agency PROFS, Lenne arranged many things specifically for the GC32s including a wide area WiFi network across Lake Traunsee, enabling video to be transmitted directly to the web, incorporated into live coverage streamed on the internet.
“We’ve come a long way since the beginning of this year,” admitted Lenne. “But we demonstrated to the class what we are capable of and what our minimum quality of service can be.”
From here the GC32s move on to Lake Geneva where they will next compete in the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve and the biggest event on the lake, the Bol d’Or Mirabaud, before taking on a wide reaching tour of Europe over the course of the summer.
Full results here or download a graphic of the final results table here.
A gallery of photo's of Francis Joyon and the maxi trimaran IDEC at North Cove Marina, New York awaiting a suitable weather window for the Transat record attempt
America's Cup organisers, Golden Gate Yacht Club, have appointed a six-strong team to investigate and report on the facts of the Artemis incident, last Thursday, and to recommend on safety issues for the AC72 class and event.
Francis Joyon and IDEC Set to Arrive At Dennis Conner's North Cove
One of the greatest single-handed sailors in the world, Francis Joyon, is expected to arrive at Dennis Conner's North Cove today with his extreme trimaran "IDEC." Joyon will be berthed in the marina for a week or longer as he waits for a weather window to challenge the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Record.
IDEC is 97 ft in length and one of the fastest ocean-going trimarans in the world.In 2008, Joyon and IDEC set a new Single-Handed Round the World Record of 57 days, 13 hours and 34 minutes, beating the previous record by 14 days.
Joyon was last at North Cove in 2005 when he arrived to attempt the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Record. He succeeded in that attempt, smashing the previous record but also losing his boat after crossing the finish line. His feat was so inspirational for local sailors that theyestablished the "Atlantic Cup" as a symbol of the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Record.
If you are around North Cove this week, be sure to come down and see this incredible racing machine. She is worth the trip andwill fascinate and delight you. And if you happen to see the greatest single-handed sailor in the world on board working, be sure to wave and say "Welcome to New York City again!" --
Hopes for the final day of racing at The Great Cup’s first ever event, the GC32 Austria Cup within Allianz Traunsee Week presented by BMW, were to complete an eight race round robin before a weather front rolled across Lake Traunsee. Sadly half way through the rain arrived, the wind disappeared and any further prospects of racing were quashed.
While Flavio Marazzi and his Marwin crew set a brisk tone of the day port tacking the fleet with a giant hull fly off the line in race one, it was again Kiwi former Match Racing World Champion Adam Minoprio who continued his relentless string of race wins to end the regatta first overall, eight points ahead of Marwin.
“I didn’t have high hopes of winning, but I didn’t have any other goal,” said Minoprio of his success in his first ever multihull regatta. “I am a little surprised I won. I am pretty happy with how quickly we managed to start sailing these boats fast around the track, but the guys I had sailing with me with put in a big effort.” Sailing with Minoprio were Andy Dinsdale (GER/USA), Thomas Tschepen (AUT) and Diego Stefani (ITA).
From here Minoprio sets out this year to reclaim the Alpari World Match Racing Tour title, but hopes to return to The Great Cup. “It is definitely a whole lot of fun. The GC32 is a great boat: It is very nice to sail, it gets up and flies a hull in six knots of wind and you can zoom around a track. It is a great package.”
Flavio Marazzi has taken to his new GC32 catamaran with the same intensity with which he undertook his Star keelboat campaigns for the last three Olympic Games.“It was a really great experience with six teams,” he said. “The boats are very equal. It is hard to be always be on top.”
