Not a good look

The starboard float on Herve Cleris' brand new 50ft tri snaps off

Herve Cleris' Irens Cabaret-designed 50ft trimaran yesterday saw her starboard float snap off from its crossbeams. Cleris and the crew on board their new proa, Prince de Bretagne managed to make the best of the situation and with the help of a lifeboat managed to get the boat to Camaret at the entrance of the Rade de Brest with capsizing or losing the rig.

Once ashore Herve Cleris, a multihull racer of some 25 years experience described what happened: "We were sailing. There was a swell and wind of around 15-18 knots, but the conditions were quite manageable. We heard a big bang, which lasted for about 10 seconds and we saw the starboard float separated from the crossbeams. My immediately reflex to this shock was to luff to prevent us from capsizing. We managed to stay head to wind by starting the engine to spare the mast. Once everything was okay I issued a Mayday was relayed by the CROSS [the French coast guard]. We were towed close to the shore by the Camaret lifeboat. I want to thank everyone who intervened to get us out of this mess."

According to Cleris towing the two hulled trimaran was tricky because the float which had broken off only remained attached to the rest of the boat by the netting between the float, main and crossbeams on the starboard side. At one point the float nearly collided with the main hull. As a result they could only tow the bow sloyw at 2-3 knots. ?
Very tricky because there was a float that was simply retained by the net. He came knocking in the central hull. There were still about 4 meters of hollow ... It was hot! You could tow only 2 or 3 knots. It has successfully managed and mostly everything was back to the port of Camaret.

As to the causes, Cleris says it is too early to tell. "We'll meet with the team and work to find the causes. The boat is new for sure, but we had our qualification (for the Jacques Vabre) in tough conditions in the Bay of Biscay to test the boat. There were no warning signs.

Prince de Bretagne was to have lined up against the new Actual and Crepes Whoau! trimarans in the double handed Transat Jacques Vabre next month. Sadly this now won't come to pass as Cleris acknowldeges they will have to spend much time int he boaryard to fix the breakage.

"It's very disappointing, but we'll stick together and do what it takes to return," Cleris concluded.