80' trimaran for Route du Rhum to be skippered by Lionel Lemanchois

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More info today! Lemonchois has been interviewed via iridium, and here's what CourseAuLarge writes:

 

I'll stick to championing the bow roll concept, it takes less force and weight. Turning over is more controlled than flipping.

 

Thanks for the update, Blackburn. That must be hell inside the main hull like that....

 

^^^

Doesn't sound all that terrible to me Doug; drifting for a week while it's nice and warm day and night, plenty of food and drink, no rough weather, nothing to collide with... steadily getting closer and closer to Ipanema Beach...

lol

 

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The Tugboat AGIL is now just a few miles away and expected to join PdB in a little over an hour, about 8pm Paris time.

They'll have a no doubt happy reunion, talk about what their jobs are tomorrow, and wait for daylight to start the work related to righting the boat.

Hopefully Lionel has managed to catch a big fish for dinner?

 

Fred Le Peutrec just put an update on their plans on the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/MaxiPrinceDeBretagne

Lionel awaits the tug on area this evening, at the time of the sunset (around 8 p.m. French time)!

Therefore, with his technical team, it will be in detail on the whole operation of delivery to the place of the trimaran so that each has its role in mind and that everything happens for the best tomorrow.

"It is not question for us to begin the reversal of the boat at night. We will wait the dawn to carry out the manoeuvre. If everything goes well, it should be completed in 10 hours. Now, it must be that everything is proceeding as planned and that everything is clear for everyone. Once Lionel is on board with us, we will ensure that the tug crew members, who speak exclusively Brazilian, are on the same wavelength as we. But I'm not worried, we have perfectly anticipated the operation and we have even repeated regularly these days at sea".

The latest tweet confirms that the tugboat has arrived alongside the trimaran

 

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There have been a number of short updates today on Twitter, here they are (in descending order):

There was also an article earlier on the PdB page, where the new bits were that they'd been guided in by Lionel the last few miles on radio, that they'd emptied lots of stuff from the tri (including those sails) into a zodiak for transfer to the tug. Then after his shower they had a steak dinner.

The brief explanation of the righting process (a few more words than twittered):

 

That is just terrific! Hope they got some video.....

 

Great to see it worked out should make the tow easier and faster and any resultant damage less serious. VPLP put up a rough sketch of how it was done.

http://www.vplp.fr/news/19/60/Prince-de-Bretagne-est-a-l-endroit.html

 

^^^

Looks terrific Corley, my dinner is ready now so I'll try to figure it out later. But it bears very little resemblance to what Lemonchois describe in the article above! In that drawing the chain is evidently on the same side as the sinking float.

 

That is interesting, glad it worked. I'd rather be self flooding the bows and winching over attached to a water bag like the Ruiz system championed by Jim Brown instead of hanging around for 10 days waiting. It would be difficult to set up a winch system for the side flood method but a kite sail on the windward ama for the pull might have merit. Think of the money saved over a tug, you could even send out a righting crew for help in a faster boat and still be ahead.

 

^^^

Here's some translations of the notes on Corley's VPLP sketch of the righting plan:

At the bottom of the drawing where the line connecting the tri and tugboat is most submerged, it says "the mass (weight) of the cable allows the righting of the tri".

Just above that (envahissement flotteur + crosse de bras) means " fooding of the outrigger and the beam.

Top right corner "pate d'oie sur flotteur", I'm uncertain how this translates, my guess is "bridle on the outrigger" since the line from the tugboat goes all the way around the capsized tri and attaches to the underside of the near float.

Look like the blue note just below the surface beside the starboard hull says "400 tons" - the rest of the stuff in blue is illegible except on the tug is written "800 meters of cable".

Finally, the little overhead ( or underhead) diagram of the tri shows how it was planned to attach the tugboat lines to the beam connections of the starboard outrigger.

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Actually I sort of liked what Lionel appeared to outline earlier today, where the chain was instead a counterweight on the port side (in relation to the sketch).

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Tomorrow we'll be all the wiser?

 

It's a 24 meters 7.2 tons boat...the cost is more than 4 millions dollars. The righting torque is 62 meters/tons -around 450.000 pounds/foot- It's insured or at least the sponsor has the means. The mast is broken and has been "disconnected" to save the platform so a tug is already mandatory. And the skipper is alone...
Do you think it's possible to right up one guy alone a 24 meters trimaran?
Do you think that the longitudinal stability of such a tri, with amas almost as long as the main hull and having a volume of more than 15 m3 (more than 4000 gallons) each will permit to right it up with just a waterbag and a sail kite?
How do you pump by hand at least 5000 gallons of water, with a pump of 1 quarter by stroke it's 20000 strokes for flooding and 20000 strokes more for pumping out. I guess that the arms will be aching after that.
The Ruiz system was for small tris with short low buoyancy amas...look at the pics. It's just 21 feet Tremolino in flat sea and look the boat is far from being righted but the waterbag is almost in the water...imagine that with a 80 feet boat and 3 hulls of almost the same size each.

 

Give me a lever and I'll move the world......and yes given enough area etc.... I do think it is possible. If it can capsize by sail it is even easier to recapsize with the stability compromised. You also don't need a mast for kite sailing back.

 

I should also point out the Ruiz system was designed for catamarans and adapted to tris, longer amas should be a help.