Armel Le Cléac’h and the Maxi Trimaran Solo Banque Populaire VII before at the start of the TransMed record attempt which they just set in 18h 58min & 13sec, beating Thomas Coville’s time onboard Sodebo in the first solo multihull record time of the so called TransMed route between Marseille (France) and Carthage (Tunisia) of 25 hours 36 minutes and 36 seconds.
Photo assignment for Banque Populaire.
The 2013 Seiko 49er and 49erFX World Championships, 150 skiffs – 28 nations Two World Championship Titles.
http://49er.org/2013-world-championships/
The Cercle des Nageurs de Marseille is part of the French swimming history, one of the World’s best swimming team.
“The water is your friend…..you don’t have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move”.
Alexandr Popov
Onboard the MOD70 Race for Water, during a training session before the Marseille City Race, part of the MOD 70 European Tour, skipper Steve Ravussin.
“Ground Control To Major Tom …”
With barely enough time for the average astronaut to recover from the impressive round-the-world victory onboard Groupama70 in the Volvo Ocean Race, capitaine Thomas Coville is recharged and at it again onboard his faithful red Sodeb’o maxi-trimaran. The weeks ahead will see the Sodeb’o seacraft slicing through the ocean at full kip chasing new reference times to add to her impressive stable. First on the agenda, Thomas and his machine are attempting the singlehanded multihull TransMed record which is currently held by Pascal Bidegorry at the helm of Banque Populaire V. This attempt will be followed directly by the solo multihull Cadiz-San Salvador passage, a speed record quite familiar in the Sodeb’o universe seeing as Thomas has held the best time from 2005-2008. He would like nothing more than to reclaim this record from Francis Joyon before the close of 2012. We wish Thomas and the team only the best wind and waves for this ambitious program.
As is evident in this latest gallery of training and stress-tests, Thomas and the Sodeb’o spacecraft are well dialed in and up for the challenge… no matter what the atmosphere.
Blast Off sequence commencing in 10…9….8……
Words: Fred Eagle
Transmed Records:
Multihull Record fully-crewed : 14 hours 20 minutes and 34 seconds (May 2010)
Multihull Record holder: Pascal Bidégorry (France) sailing Banque Populaire V
Monohull Record singlehanded: 1 day 21 hours 20 minutes and 29 seconds (June 2009)
Monohull Record Holder: Kito de Pavant (France) sailing Groupe Bel
“Pain is temporary, pride is forever!”
Anonymous
The fourth Marseille Marathon under the sign of festivity and popularity since its first edition, with a new event this year the Marseille Marathon Ladies.
Published in Yachting World January 2012 issue.
If you ever needed a graphic description of just why all modern Open 60s have the protective cocoons they do, here it is. this is a shot of the military hardware company-sponsored SAFRAN during training for the Transat Jacques Vabre 2011 with skipper Marc Guillemot co/skipper Yann Eliés, which starts at the end of October from Le Havre, Normandy. The doublehanded TJV is one of France’s major ocean races, with the cream of the IMOCA and Class 40 crop on the line for the jaunt from France to Costa Rica.
Words: Alan Block
Another surreal view from the lens of Christophe Launay, this time from the Sodeb’O shed in La Trinité, where the big trimaran is being cleaned up and mothballed until Thomas Coville gets back from his Volvo Ocean Race campaign aboard Franck Cammas’ Team Groupama.
Meanwhile, Francis Joyon, Coville’s nemesis in the record-breaking game, is on standby with IDEC in Brooklyn, NY, readying for his chance to crush Coville’s solo transatlantic record of 5 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes and 20 seconds. For comparison’s sake, Rambler 100, the most powerful and modern of racing monohulls, just had a brilliant crossing last week of 6 days, 22 hours, with about 20 more mouths to feed than Joyon…
Words: Alan Block
