The Hydroptère project is not limited to the performance of the 60-feet trimaran which has beaten two world speed records at an average speed of over 50 knots in 2009 in the Mediterranean. Alain Thébault and his team decided to extend the limits of the project and planned to develop two new boats, with the ultimate objective of sailing around the world in approximately 40 days on l’Hydroptère maxi.
To reach this objective, the team with the help of the ”papés” (retired engineers) and of their scientific adviser, The Swiss Technological Institute in Lausanne, decided to follow the same experimental process as that employed by Alain Thébault in the development of l’Hydroptère and to consider an intermediate step, that being to build on a reduced scale a test model i.e. l’Hydroptère.ch.
At the same time in Lorient, l’Hydroptère is in a shipyard and she should be back in the water in spring.
l’Hydroptère.ch will serve as a lab boat whose main purpose is to test geometries and behaviours in varied real conditions for the development of l’Hydroptère maxi.
As a Swiss-French project l’Hydroptère.ch is being built in two shipyards, one in Brittany and one in Switzerland. She should be launched beginning of summer 2010.