Morphing Sodeb'O

[Chris Ostlind]

The maxi-trimaran, Sodedb'O has been lifted from the water in La Trinite sur Mer, France (photo below) and has been taken to a huge hangar nearby for total refitting for the upcoming sailing season.

Everything is being stripped from the boat, including paint and will be replaced with new, state of the art gear. The boat is going to see a concentrated effort to further reduce sailing weight in areas where it can be done without weakening the boat in any way.

Perhaps the biggest change is that Sodeb'O is going to be fitted with a pair of ama mounted lifting foils in anticipation of the upcoming Route du Rhum to be held at the end of October.

On the Sodeb'O site, http://www.sodebo-voile.com/accueil.html there is a great interview with Benoit Cabaret, (photo below) one of the principal designers of the boat with Nigel Irens. He discusses the process of adding ama foils to Sodeb'O and how that will impact sailing style of Thomas Coville.http://www.sodebo-voile.com/actu/new...e-Sodeb-O.html

Down at the bottom of the Cabaret page, there's a link to a collection of photos showing the boat in the Sodeb'O shed being worked over by the team. The photos are under the title, Voir les diapos photos and the entry is: 22/12/09 : Effeuillage de Sodeb'O

There is also a neat collection of shots on board Groupama 3, where Coville crewed for the second ill-fated attempt at a Jules Verne record...
11/11/09 : Avec Tom à bord de Groupama 3 !

Lots of stuff going on and this boat is going to be right in the the thick of it as soon as she rolls out of the barn in April.

[Doug Lord]

Well, that's interesting-with IDEC also being fitted for foils.(Joyon to add Foils to IDEC ) As I remember it,both sisterships were originally reinforced in way of potential foil trunks so this possibility was anticipated by Irens some time ago.
Lifting foils have sure proven to be a tremendous advance for racing tris -and at least one cruising tri.
Thanks for the update.

http://www.sodebo-voile.com/actu/new...e-Sodeb-O.html (direct link to the interview)