COMMENT
HURTLING AROUND THE OCEANS ALONE IN GARGANTUAN MULTIHULLS CAPABLE OF HUGE SPEEDS – AND UNTHINKABLE CAPSIZES – REQUIRES A MENTAL LEAP
The Ultim trimarans are extraordinary machines. Each with a footprint more than six times bigger than a typical UK detached house they are, quite simply, vast. Admittedly, most of an Ultim’s area is unusable – being either trampoline netting between the hulls, or plain fresh air. And when it comes to comparing living space the tables are turned, most bathrooms being bigger than the trimarans’ habitable accommodation. But the fact remains that these boats are giants.
By the time you are reading this the six competitors in the Arkea Ultim Challenge (arkeaultimchallengebrest. com), the first ever solo fleet race around the world for big multihulls, should be approaching half way.
In the days leading up to the start you could feel the tension on the dockside in Brest. The howling gales that swept through the week before the start closed the visitor centre. Even when conditions eased, the white caps just outside the breakwater, horizontal rain and the noise of the wind were apt reminders as to what lay ahead.
The fact that SVR Lazartigue was missing as the team battled to repair structural damage to the starboard crossbeam after the Transat Jacques Vabre was another reminder as to the fine line that these teams tread between creating a competitive machine and one that will go the distance. At this size and scale what happens in between is a daunting prospect. When 26-year-old skipper Tom Laperche and his team finally arrived in Brest with the boat less than a day before the start, he was brought to tears as the relief and emotional pressure burst through.
How do the skippers get to a place mentally where they are at ease heading deep offshore on a multihull – with all the inherent risks of capsize and structural breakdowns? At what point and how do you get comfortable with that?
All six skippers are highly experienced, but the staggering speeds these machines can now achieve are taking the game onto another level and piling on the pressure.
The latest fully foiling machines are capable of sustaining 40-plus knots offshore. The crew of Banque Populaire told me they’ve seen bursts of 50 knots on several occasions and that at these speeds the boat remained stable and controllable.
Coping with a giant runaway bus doing these speeds for over a month, day in and day out, is incomprehensible. James Boyd’s excellent feature previewing the event (see yachtingworld.com) went some way to explaining how the skippers convert an extraordinary task into acc
