Around the World in 45 Days

Banque Pop nukes RTW record

The fourteen sailors aboard the Maxi trimaran Banque Populaire V just entered history of offshore racing by becoming the fastest men around the globe with crew, after 45 days 13 hours 42 minutes 53 seconds of sailing*. Loïck Peyron and his crew improved the reference time of the Jules Verne Trophy held by Groupama 3 since March 2010 by 2 days 18 hours 1 minute and 59 seconds.

JULES VERNE TROPHYStart date and time : November 22nd 2011 at 09:31:42 Paris time (08:31:42 GMT)
Arrival date and time at Ushant: January 6th 2012 at 23:14:35 Paris time (22:14:35 GMT)
Distance: 29 002 miles
Average speed : 26.51 knots
New reference time on the Jules Verne Trophy* : 45 days 13 hours 42 minutes 53 seconds
Time difference with Groupama 3’s record in 2010: 2 days 18 hours 1 minute and 59 seconds
Press Releases Maxi Trimaran Banque Populaire V

One fellow commented:
That's 30.5 freaking mile per hour average!!! Beyond unbelievable. Be nice
to know their maximum sustained speed over a mile, an hour, a day.

41 Knots on video

Incredible speed of 41 knots for Banque Populaire V during the Jules Verne's Trophy

Incredible speed of 41 knots for Banque Populaire V during the Jules Verne's Trophy - YouTube

Maxi Tri Banque Populaire V at Very High Speed - YouTube

We have lived thru a golden era of max-multihull development and sailing....and much of it accomplished by France's love affair with offshore sailing challenges.

But one has to wonder how long this advancement is sustainable?

Here is an interesting perspective:

BIGGER AND FASTER ROUND THE WORLD?
How big and how fast could a design go? It's a fascinating spiral of
calculations, including money.

How long will it be before the fastest round the world record is broken
again? Could it go down to down to 40 days and be beaten by an even bigger
multihull than the 130ft Banque Populaire V? The answer to both is a
qualified yes. It's possible. But the margins are getting smaller, the
risks higher, and the huge sums needed are in shorter supply.

This round the world record time may stay for a while (set this week at 45
days 13 hours 42 minutes and 53 seconds). It is the first time in over a
decade that another potentially faster vessel has not been in build as a
record time was being broken.

Banque Populaire cost Euros 14 million to build and it took four years to
achieve the end objective. Meanwhile, running costs have been around Euros
3 million a year. So the price tag of a venture with almost exclusively
French appeal has soared to around Euros 26 million.

You have to conclude that further development is a long way off. The
cheapest way to break the record again, though, would be to use the same
boat. Given a few tweaks and a great deal of luck with the weather, as many
as two or three extra days could be gained, according to experts.

But it's a chancy game that could take several seasons. And so we're back
to that whopping Euros 3 million bill a year to run a boat capable of doing
almost nothing else.

It's not a deal many sponsors would snap up right now. --
Elaine Bunting,
Yachting World, read on:
Bigger and faster round the world? | Elaine Bunting's Blog | Yachting World

Cockpit Tour

Video tour of cockpit....in french, but you can get the ideas.

Check out the multiple linking of those pedestal 'coffee grinders' to get the winch power required for those very big powerful sails....and how much forward those ama rudders are...and the curve in those daggerboards to provide hydrodynamic lift as well as leeway resistance.

Trophée Jules Verne - Vidéo exclusive : la visite de Banque Populaire V - 1 : le cockpit - Annonce bateaux - Annonces bateaux - Occasion Bateaux - Occasion Voiliers - Occasion voiles

Translation of Cockpit Tour

Translation courtesy of 'Laurent' on the SA Ocean Racing Forums

It's Pierre-Yves Moreau (aka PYM), the boat captains that explains the different systems in the cockpit. The journalist is Loic Le Bras, from Voiles et Voiliers, the biggest monthly French sailing magazine.

At 00:25, explaination on the grinders; there are 4 of them, and they can all be hooked together to work on one winch, apparently any winch... PYM shows how to do it by flipping small levers on the columns and on the winch base.
At 1:00, explainations that there are some manoeuvres, where they put 8 guys on one winch, for instance when they set up a gennaker, and a long trim in of the main sail, in a jibe.

Most of the "driving" work can be done with 4 people, one shift, or 8 people, the current shift and the standby shift, or even 10, with the skipper and the navigator on top of the 2 shifts; they usually do not have to wake up the off shift. The example at 1:20 on the video is when they were taking a reef.

At 1:40. Position of the shift. One on the helm, one sitting by him on the sheet; 2 close to the entrance of the boat; on the bench. But they don't stay seated for long, because of all the continuous small adjustments, such as, more dagger board, less foil, etc.

2:05, example of the use of a winch. The one that PYM is pointing to is for the daggerboard, foresail, and foil...

External displays: they are all pretty much the same; there are 8 of them!! Speed, wind speed, TWA, etc. They also show boat performance; from the wind angle and the wind speed, with the polar charts, they can see if they are on target for boat performance.

The helmsman has displays just in front of him; this is good by day time, but critical by night time. If you head upwind by 5 degrees, things can get hairy really fast...

At 3:10, you can see that they have displays also behind the forward beam, so the helmsman can see the waves and the data without looking anywhere else.

They then show the small spray windshield, that they quickly broke... So tehy were putting behind it a sailbag to act as a cushion. (you can see it at 3:22). They plan to use a similar system in the future, maybe a cushion, insted of a sailbag...

The journalist makes a comment about helming the boat; he had the opportunity to do it, just after they got out of the building shed; it was like driving a truck!! You got yoru workout!

PYM explains that they worked a lot to improve it. They changed, the gears, the pulleys, etc to the main rudder on the main hull (the system is chain at the wheel, and then textile to the rudder; you can see it at 4:20). It is also "hard linkage" all the way to the ama rudders.

The helmsman has no direct communication with the navigator at the navigation table. He has 2 red buttons on the side of the displays (you can see them at 4:33); one is for an alarm (siren) inside the boat, to get everybody on deck NOW! They never had to use it. The other one is for Man Over Board. The MOB button obviously track the position on the GPS, but also automatically drop one o the 2 rescue "devices" (apparently an inflatable one man "raft"; you can see it at 5:00). The system is smart enough to launch only the "upwind" raft, from the back of the rear beam...

Comment from the journalist: everything is HUGE in the cockpit! It is not the type of boat where you just climb on the traveler to take a reef. PYM's comment: we get used to it... but no, you don't climb on the main sheet traveler, to take a reef, but instead you climb on the boom...

Only breakage in the cockpit: "a small piece" on one winch, but they have had that problem before, so they knew how to quickly repair it. There is one pulley that started to make strange noises during the last jibe on the finish line; they changed it in the entrance of the Brest roadstead known as "Le Goulet". I bet they were at the dock less than one hour after that, in Brest harbour, but they still changed it. Very professional.