The team behind Hydroptère, the hydrofoiling trimaran which last year
broke the world speed sailing record at an average speed of 50 knots,
have annouced an ambitious new project. 

 Alain Thébault and his team
aim top build two new boats with the aim of sailing around the world in
approximately 50 days on what they have dubbed ‘l’Hydroptère maxi’. 

To reach this objective, the team, with the help of the “papés” (retired
engineers) and of their scientific adviser, The Swiss Technological
Institute in Lausanne, decided to follow the same experimental process
as that employed by Alain Thébault in the development of l’Hydroptère
and to consider an intermediate step, that being to build a test model
on a reduced scale, to be named ‘l’Hydroptère.ch.

This will serve as a lab boat whose main purpose is to test
geometries and behaviours in varied real conditions for the development
of l’Hydroptère maxi.

As a Swiss-French project l’Hydroptère.ch is being built in two
shipyards, one in Brittany and one in Switzerland, and the test boat
should be launched at the beginning of the summer (2010).

 Find
out more at The Hydroptere Website