L'Hydroptere maxi planned

But first Alain Thébault announces new small scale development platform to be built

Yesterday during a press conference in Lausanne, on the campus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Alain Thébault and his team unveiled the drawings of l’Hydroptère.ch. This new lab boat will be a reduced scale trial platform for the future Hydroptère maxi.

The building of the new boat will be Swiss-French, shared between the shipyards B&B in La Trinité sur Mer, which has already started the manufacture of the centreboard and the cross beams and Décision SA in Ecublens, where work will start in June (presumably after they have finished Alinghi's giant AC multihull).

As the objective of the Hydroptère team in the medium term is the quest for oceanic records in the Atlantic and Pacific, followed by a circumnavigation on l’Hydroptère maxi, it was necessary to develop a versatile platform.

Thus the design of l’Hydroptère.ch focuses on the desire to maintain and optimise the equipment related to the boat’s speed and behaviour 'in flight', already proven following the years of sailing sessions on the 60ft l’Hydroptère, while developing points such as manoevurability and light wind performance.