Slim Boats: trimaran IDEC

[Ilan Voyager]

It seems that the old recipe of long slim hulls, lightness and simplicity pays. Nigel Irens has always the magic touch...

An example.

TRIMARAN IDEC

The boat:

Length Main Hull: 29.70 m 97.4 feet
Lenth Outriggers: 24.50 m 80.3 feet
Width : 16.50 m 54.10 feet
Weight (real): 11 metric tons only 24230 pounds.
Max stability torque around 110,000 kg.meter 794,714 lbs.foot

Surface Sail winward 350 sqm 3762.50 sqf
Surface Sail downwind 520 sqm 5590 sqf
Mast heigth 32 metres 105 feet

Designers Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret
Calculations Herve Devaux
Shipyard Marsaudon Composites Lorient France

Made all carbon fiber/sandwich post cured

Base of conception; the longest, simplest and lightest trimaran for a LONE man around the world.
We can see that there are not bulbous bows, bustles or another tricks. Just pure flowing lines of very high prismatic hulls with a very interesting repartition of volumes. The drawing shows a very simple boat, just three hulls, 2 straight crossarms, and 2 appendices. It looks like a cheap beach trimaran.

I guess that Nigel has taken again a good piece of wood, his hand planer and sandpaper for the first model. Yes, he works like that. After being happy with the forms sculpted in the wood, the computer is used.

The skipper: Francis Joyon 51 years old called "titanium mental" has a long experience of multihulls. Besides he is able to stay 15 days sleeping 4 hours/day by bits of 20 minutes...That explains his ability to maintain a such speed during 57 days.

The result:

2008 World record sailing around the world by the three caps SOLITARY.
57 days 13 hours 34 minutes et 6 seconds (holding always today)
so a mean speed of 19.09 knots

The record will be hard to break: to give an idea the world record by the maxi catamaran Orange with a full equipage is about 50 days...

616 nautic miles (mean speed 25.66 knots) in 24 hours solitary

Internet site unhappily only in french http://www.trimaran-idec.com but a lot of pics and videos

Videos
Construction:
http://www.trimaran-idec.com/multime...popup.asp?id=2
and admire the quality of construction and finitions.

Training Sailing
http://www.trimaran-idec.com/multime...popup.asp?id=3
very interesting to see the efficient motion of the tri.

Here we have proofs, not claims

I add 2 more links:
Multihull Geant
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ8vd9p8fDU

It's worth to see: the 60 feet Geant running fast on good waves; a close look is interesting: the rigidity of the structure under high stresses is atonishing, the ability of the boat to pass the waves shows how the distribution of the volumes works.

Trimarans - Lunatic Sailing
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=E4BCSKTbB98

60 feet Trimarans regattas are rather popular in France. When well situated along a high coast a regatta can draw until 20000 people. So the sponsors invest as the returns are excellent.
These regattas are funnier than a America Cup and far less expensive. Thirty knots burst speeds are common and there are a lot of yelling when rounding the buoys.
The popularity of fast sail in France explains how the 60 feet and maxis multihulls can be financed.

[Jack Daniels Eq]

Has anyone even had a glimpse of these plans ??
BR>Jack

[blackdaisies]

The eventual design turned out to be very sea friendly with a soft, curving bilge allowing swells to pass freely underneath and a sharp narrow bow that would part waves and water easily. A low freeboard would create less wind resistance and the pod-like centre section act as a buoyancy bag making the boat completely unstable upside down and promoting the self righting action in conjunction with ballast in the hull. Being lightweight the craft acts like a cork and yields to the movements of wind and waves rather than providing resistance to them, which in turn reduces the amount of stress placed on the craft. The only downside to this is that she can at times be a very lively ride and often require the crew to hang on to their stomachs as she bobs and rolls her way along the great ocean highways.

http://www.expedition360.com/reference/design.htm

This is good for people looking for a real adventure. A long thin boat seems to better.