New Sodebo launched

Thomas Coville's solo record breaking trimaran gets dipped in Australia

Following the launch of Francis Joyon's Idec in Brittany on Tuesday, so today in Newcastle, some 150km north of Sydney her sistership Thomas Coville's Sodebo was launched following her construction at BoatSpeed.

The team have been waiting since the beginning of the week for the southerly wind to abate. "In just over three hours, we lifted the boat, installed the three rudders, put the boat in the water, stepped her mast, put the boom on and her sails," recounts proud skipper Coville. "Putting the boat in the water represents the completion of 55,000 man hours of labour."

The design brief for designers Nigel Irens and Benoît Cabaret was for a boat to beat Ellen MacArthur's solo round the world record of 71 days and 14 hours. "The maxi-trimaran Sodebo was studied like the other maxi tris, only its realisation is different," explains Cabaret. "The Sodebo team developed the project by integrating systems tested on their 60 footer. Studies were undertaken on the hulls. Each boat resembles its skipper,” says Cabaret of the comparison between Sodebo and Idec.

So today, after more than a year in construction, Sodebo has been officially born, with its characteristic long bow on her 32m long centre hull, enabling her to gain of speed while remaining stable fore and aft as she attempts record passages. Her sail areas is some 25% larger than the Sodebo 60 ft tri with a mast 35m tall.

"I believe that I never saw such a beautiful boat!" says Coville. "I appreciate the purity of her line, the smoothness of the stem. It all seems able to shed water. In the air it appears rather large, but on water looks very fine.

Following her launch, Sodebo will go down to Sydney and from there will head north up to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia and then into the China Sea, across the Indian Ocean and up to the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal before entering the Med and making her way to France.

"Our life as sailors begins again," continues Coville of this exotic delivery trip/shake down cruise back to Europe. "I am so impatient to sail it. Today, I will remember for a very very long time. This evening a new page starts.”

Tomorrow the team continue rigging the boat and sorting out the sails and connecting the three rudders, ready for their first test sail next week.

Vital statistics

Home port: La Trinité sur Mer
Designers: Nigel Irens / Benoît Cabaret
Engineering: John Levell
Appendage design: Martin Fischer
Hydrodynamic studies: Yann Roux
Builder: Boat Speed (Australie)
LOA: 32m (105ft)
Beam: 16,55m ( 55ft)
Disp: 12 tonnes
Draft: 2,50m
Mainsail: 227m²
Solent: 152m²
Staysail: 93m²
Storm jib: 29m²
Gennaker : 305m²
ORC jib: 48m²
All the sails are in Cuben Fiber
Mast height: 35m
Righting moment: around 110 tonnes/m

More photos on the following pages...