Nursing a boat around the world is no mean feat. Idec with it’s smaller rig may be better suited to resisting this kind of damage.
Any big Trimaran going around the world it is more about slowing down and finishing than pedal to the metal.
Category: olivier de kersauson
AHEAD OF THE GHOST
BOTH SPINDRIFT AND IDEC ARE AHEAD OF BANQUE POPULAIRE EXITING THE PACIFIC. WITH ABOUT 7,000 MILES LEFT TO THE FINISH AND 15 DAYS. SPINDRIFT IS ABOUT 500 MILES IN FRONT OF THE RECORD RIGHT NOW AND IDEC IS 175 MILES AHEAD.
NAVIGATING THE HIGH PRESSURE ZONES WILL BE THE TRICK SAILING NORTH IN THE ATLANTIC ONCE AGAIN.
DO MORE WITH LESS
I have always had great admiration for those who dare to do.
A smaller boat with a smaller crew require smarter sailing.
STILL CAN’T BEAT THE FRENCH AT FUN
CONVERTING “GERONIMO” INTO “SODEBO”
“Geronimo” has been updated for Thomas Coville. Olivier de Kersauson set the bar high with “Geronimo” some years ago; setting records everywhere he sailed.
Copied from Sailing anarchy.
I have long felt that the accomplishments of Olivier De Kersauson were not fully appreciated. I am so pleased to see this post.
In the 2005 transatlantic race I sailed on ‘Tempest” and we used the same weather router who steered Olivier around the world. He was brilliant.
ultime warrior
At 111 feet long and 72 feet wide, the old VPLP Gerononimo was a groundbreaking racer in many ways. When Olivier De Kersauson launched her back in 2001, record breakers like Fossett and Peyron and Lewis were positive that giant catamarans were just better, and they’d proven it so clearly that many thought De Kersauson a nutter for risking so much on a boat that clearly couldn’t accomplish anything. But 100,000 mostly trouble-free miles and a Jules Verne (and several other) major records later, the boat’s clear advantages – safety, ability to be driven hard, motion, upwindedness – emphatically ended the era of the maxi-catamaran. Geronimo would become the basis for the most dominant record runners ever, as well as the boat that took the America’s Cup back from Alinghi: Franck Cammas’ (and now Armel Le Cle’ach’s) monstrous Groupama 2/BP6, Lionel Lemonchois’s (and then Loick Peyron, and now Yann and Dona’s) BP5/Spindrift 2, and the BMW Oracle Racing 90 all came out of VPLP’s computers and all owe their heritage heavily and directly to Geronimo.
This history lesson may bore some, but to us, ocean racing is all about history and legend, and that’s why we share it with you. And with 2014/15 seeing Thomas Coville rebuilding, refitting, repowering, and restoring Geronimo for his own Route Du Rhum, record aspirations, and Ultime solo 100+ footer class racing, we can’t wait to see history come roaring to life again on the starting line. Coville was just a kid when he first began racing with De Kersauson, and the brilliant Frenchman has now been part of most of the last decade’s Jules Verne Trophy runs as well as a Volvo Ocean Race victory. His narrow Nigel Irens Sodebo trimaran came tantalizingly close to claiming the Solo RTW record, but it’s clear that Coville has given up on that concept in favor of the heavier and far more powerful Geronimo. Above is an Yvan Zedda shot of the boat as her refit moves ahead quickly at Multiplast’s yard; go here for a full gallery, here