Groupama delay by a year

Head scratching still occurring over the causes of the catastrophic failure of Franck Cammas' 105ft trimaran

On 18 February, while a day ahead of Orange 2's record, the port float broke on Franck Cammas' Groupama 3 trimaran causing her to quickly capsize. While the crew was airlifted off, five days later, the 105ft three hull wreck was recovered and towed into the New Zealand port of Dunedin from where she was shipped back to Europe. Since her arrival in France she has been back at her builder, Chantier Multiplast in Vannes as Gilles Ollier and his team there, along with designers van Peteghem/Prevost and the boat's engineers and the Groupama team have been trying to piece together the cause of the failure and what preventative measures they should take to ensure this doesn't happen again.

However at present this group is still uncertain of exactly the reason for the catastrophic failure, but has been investigating all possible reasons. "Materials fatigue or a collision with a floating object may be the cause of the damage," said Groupama Team Manager, Stéphane Guilbaud. "What we are certain of is that her construction is not in question."

Given this situation, the team have taken a decision: Groupama 3 will be repaired to continue her record breaking campaign, but this can only happen under the best conditions. "Taking risks by working quickly makes no sense because, beyond simply the performance of the boat, comes the safety of the crew, thus we are delaying our next attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy by one year," said Frederique Granado, Groupama's Director of Communication.

Skipper Franck Cammas continues: "As maxi-trimarans like Groupama 3 are becoming increasingly fast, so in the big seas and strong cross-seas, such as those we face in the Indian Ocean, the shocks are of incomparible violence. Living on board sometimes becomes almost impossible. Because of this, we have decided to change the two floats replacing the carbon honeycomb sandwich ones, with monolithic (solid) carbon. Groupama 3 will be a little heavier, but still fast." Cammas adds that they will not looking simply to repair Groupama 3 but to improve her in the process.

Stephane Guilbaud adds:" Changing the two floats will add nearly two months to the duration of te work that must be carried out on her, so instead of returning to the water in early November, Groupama 3 will only leave Multiplast in January, when it will be too late to try to make an attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy."

Another reason for this course of action is that Groupama is an insurance company - risk management is their business: "For ten years now, we have trusted Franck and his team," concludes Frédérique Granado. "It is they who are on board, be it in good or bad weather. The attempted conquest of the Jules Verne Trophy has been postponed for one year, but we will tackle other records such as the crossing of the Mediterranean or even try to improve our own record crossing of the Atlantic in 2009."

In the meantime Cammas and his sailing team are out training on the ORMA 60 Groupama 2 ready to compete in the Trophy SNSM, starting from St Nazaire on 22 June.