Maxi Trimaran Banque Populaire V sets new record

Maxi Trimaran Banque Populaire V sets new records:

- North Atlantic from New York to Lizard Point 2921 NM so 2538 Milles or 5410 Km in 3 days 15 hours 25 minutes 48 seconds. It's a mean speed of 32,94 knots or 37.91 mph or 61 kmh !!!

- 908 NM in 24 hours so a mean speed of 37,8 knots...that's very very fast. Consider that's a mean speed. Probably the max speed is around 42-45 knots.

The Maxi Trimaran Banque Populaire V is designed by Van Peteghem – Lauriot Prevost.

Specs:
Name : Maxi Banque Populaire V
Type : Oceanic Maxi Trimaran
Main Hull Length : 40 m. (131 feet)
Ama length : 37 m. (121 feet)
Width : 23 m. (75.4 feet)
Displacement : 23 tonnes (50,660 pounds) light but not too much.
Draft : 5,80 m. (19 feet)
Mast Heigth : 47 m. (154 feet...)
80 metric tons (176,211 pounds) of pressure under the mast base, not a lot considering the height and size of sails.
Winches withstand tensions more than 14 metric tons (30,837 pounds). Big arms needed.
Foils: 300 kilos (661 pounds) each...very light
Main Sail : 450 m2 (4,521 sq. feet)
Gennaker : 610 m2 (6,566 sq. feet)
Solent : 270 m2 (2,906 sq. feet)
13 sailors

All carbon as always.

It's a big boy, isn't it? Look at the pic (copyright www.nantes.fr, the city of Nantes, nice town and harbor -France-).
Very interesting and simple hulls with a flat bottom and very little rocker.
It's also an illustration of the capabilities of slim displacement hulls...

 

Impressive, to say the least! This seems to be a good year for insanely fast, insanely big multihulls.

I still can't quite get my head around the difficulty involved in controlling a gennaker that's three times larger than the entire living space of a nice single-family house.... or the number of 800-pound gorillas it must take to handle the sheet winches.

 

Almost enough to turn the average powerboat junkie to sail!!
I think it hit a top speed of 46 knots.....

 

I honestly can't think of any powerboat that can sustain that kind of speed for days on end, as these big multis do. Heck, even a train has to stop for fuel....

 

Not exactly what you meant, I know, but here's one...

 

I guess boats like Branson's Virgin Atlantic and Destreiro are the powerboat equivalent of a maxi-tri. A match race between one of each - now that'd be something to see!!

 

Yes should be interesting...I think that the speed of these maxi multis is extraordinary. There are not far from the cata ferries which are from 75 to 91 m long. Do not forget that is an ocean going boat not a special speed boat for sheltered waters.

There are videos of the construction on You Tube, although only in French you have very good views of the molds. It's noticeable that like IDEC (another max tri but designed with different philosophy) the skin of the male forms is in complete sheets of plywood, so we can deduce that the surfaces are very simple (little compound) and developable or almost. A beefier form would require a strip plank building of the males.

That means also that the hulls have always a positive local curvature, are very slim with smooth transitions so the flow of the water is rather laminair. I think also that the LCB center is gone aft and must be around 55-57%, maybe more, far from the classical 52%.
The prismatic coefficient looks pretty high for a sail boat and the rake of the topsides is not "innocent". The calculation of the Bonjean curves must reveal some interesting facts. Very little rocker. Remarkable also that the hulls are designed to avoid the planing of the boat, but surely a semi planing may occur with this long almost flat bottom.

The rudders are very thin and deep. Their position on the amas is remarkable.
I think that the main function of the foils is to counteract the pressure of the sails, not truly to lift the boat. The weight and surface of the foils show that are designed for a big 50% of the displacement. For lifting totally the boat bigger foils would be need in conjunction with foils on the rudders.

Such hulls would be interesting to adapt to an efficient motor catamaran, with very simple hulls, almost "chined", with a monolithic bottom in a small mold and 2 topsides in sandwich or honeycomb.