Morphing Sodeb'O

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/news/561-MAG-Les-foils-l-effet-turbo-de-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.

 

Sosebo and IDEC

Well, that's interesting-with IDEC also being fitted for foils.(http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/joyon-add-foils-idec-30489.html ) 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/news/561-MAG-Les-foils-l-effet-turbo-de-Sodeb-O.html (direct link to the interview)

 

I thought this info would fit best with this thread even if I am doing a bit of thread necromancy.

The text is out of the Sodebo site through google translate. I think the gist of it is that they are modifying Sodebo's sail plan and have changed the positioning of the floats to work more in harmony with the foils.


NEWS: First nav 'off Tom at the helm of Sodebo in new configuration

05/06/2012


Tom at the helm of Sodebo between Saint-Nazaire and the Trinity Team Photo On Wed Sodebo

Stopover in the Volvo Ocean Race between the step of Lisbon and one that will take six boats to Lorient via the Azores, Thomas Coville took the opportunity to return a few days in France and return to the maxi trimaran Sodebo.


And as the record SNSM which he was to attend was canceled, he spent the day Monday on the water between Saint Nazaire and La Glénans Trinité sur Mer, home port of the trimaran. The skipper could not conceal his joy of being at the helm of his multihull after a fall and winter monohull around the world with Groupama 4, which must be remembered, is leading the overall standings of the race. Aboard Sodebo, Thomas had boarded his technical team and Jean-Baptiste Le Vaillant Implications of sail that was there to validate the skipper with the sail plan. Having chosen this winter to move the floats so that the foils work best, it was not obvious that the existing sail plan is effective. The vision of Jean-Baptiste Le Vaillant is one of the architects of the recent and masterful record Banque Populaire V around the world, which is interesting for Thomas acknowledges that he is probably the only sailboat that both knows his stuff when it comes to navigating the deep south aboard a multihull. "He to know what you're going, " Thomas says admiringly of the experience accumulated by John the Baptist and Impact on the matter. At nearly against the wind and downwind, Thomas could only get to the obvious. The objective is achieved, since the floats with advanced Sodebo is faster at all speeds. "The boat pitched well even though we now refine the timing of the foils is asymmetric."

 

Shifted the floats, interesting, that means forward, I guess - and supposedly the foils were retained in earlier position - so they moved forward relative to the main hull too.

 

I guess the almost capsize at the beginning of the Round the World Singlehanded record January 29th 2011 in Ushuant, it happened more often was rumoured, and the capsize of sistership IDEC were the cause of the changes made to Sodebo.
Does anybody know if any changes were made to IDEC in the refit after the capsize?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP-67_sPgGc&feature=endscreen

 

The current issue of Ocean Racing Magazine. The translated English free to view web version has an interview with Coville where he goes into detail on the modifications to Sodebo and future plans.

http://www.ocean-racing.net/

 

Once more I'm exhuming this thread from the vault but I like the continuity it offers. Sodebo has been relaunched and Thomas and the Sodebo team are currently testing and validating the modifications made to the Nigel Iren's designed Sodebo maxi trimaran and will go on standby from the 15th of October for a weather window and another attempt to improve the solo round the world multihull record currently held by Francis Joyon and IDEC with a time of 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes and 6 seconds

http://www.sodebo.fr/voile/actualites/article/place-navigation

and a link to the bing translation:

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/....fr/voile/actualites/article/place-navigation