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Trimaran Groupama 3:
The time reducing machine
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| When creating Groupama 3, Franck Cammas and his team took into account the different approaches of their predecessors. In
fact, the principal record performed on the Atlantic or Around the World since Eric Tabarly in 1980, have generated some radically
different, if not conflicting concepts.
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Initially, the existing multihulls (Poulain, Formule Tag, Jet Services V) were more or less modified to adapt to these
sprints, but the skippers also had to take into account the fact that the weather at sea and the sailing conditions were not
the same over a week in the Atlantic and around the world for 80 days... This is where the idea for a second generation
of multihulls was born, which were more specialised for the ocean records of the third millennium: Cheyenne, Orange, Geronimo.
However, the problematic of the Jules Verne Trophy then imposed a new thinking four years later: initially, the
greatest time saving had been performed in the Atlantic, during the descent and the ascent. To beat the new record, the boat's
performance in the Southern Ocean had to be improved upon: this was the approach made by Bruno Peyron with his giant catamaran,
which gradually made up nearly four days between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. However, though Orange II (36.80 metres)
is formidable in big seas, it labours in the light airs and moderate breeze. Franck Cammas and his team thus tackled the
Jules Verne Trophy 2007 using a totally different approach: you have to go almost as quickly in rough weather and be more
at ease in the light to moderate winds, which are dotted across this course of over 26,000 miles...
Indeed, Groupama
3, a multihull measuring `just' 31.50 metres, is innovative through its 60 foot Orma trimaran design rather than the previous,
rather heavy giants, designed for the storms of the Deep South. Light, but with moderate sail area, equipped
with an open cockpit and a spacious deck layout, sober or even spartan in its interior fit out, Franck Cammas'
new boat contrasts with the reference catamaran... However, its victorious Atlantic round confirms that it is currently the
fastest of the pretenders for the Jules Verne Trophy below twenty knots of breeze: untouchable upwind, constant with wind
on the beam, capable of running very low downwind when the seas remain moderate. Now, on a circumnavigation, the sailing
conditions are usually only very hard for less than 20% of the course! Therefore, it's over the remaining 80% that Groupama
3 is aiming to save some hours, which when massed together, will add up days...
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