Created
in 1980 by ESIEA, in co-operation with the Société Nautique de La Trinité sur
Mer (SNT) and France’s National Multihull Union (UNM), the Trophée des
Multicoques represented a key moment of international offshore sail racing, and
now the Trohée is back, thanks to French offshore veterans Marc Guillemot and
Dominic Bourgeois. Scheduled for August 2018, that is a little over two months
before the start of the Route du Rhum single-handed transatlantic race, he
event is intended to become a unique gathering of multihulls.
From the
very first edition, held in May 1980, the Trophée des Multicoques brought
together as many as twenty-two boats: ten racing multihulls, including
the future OSTAR winner, American Phil Weld on his trimaran Moxie; the
event’s winner Éric Loizeau on Gauloises IV and Éric Tabarly on the
foiler Paul Ricard, who that same year would be the first to break the
historic overall transatlantic speed record. For three days, the Bay of
Quiberon in south-west Brittany, was under the spotlight.
The festival of multihulls
As a
consequence, the Trophée des Multicoques triggered the interest around
multihulls, particularly in France, involving more naval architects from the
USA like Dick Newick and Walter Greene, and from Europe like UK’s Derek
Kelsall, Nigel Irens, Phil Morrison and John Shuttleworth and France’s
Sylvestre Langevin, Xavier Joubert, Gilles Ollier, the Groupe Graal, Gilles
Gahinet, Michel Joubert, Marc Lombard, Philippe Briand, Vincent Lauriot-Prévost
& Marc van Peteghem (VPLP) just to name a few.
This
resulted in a development of multihull design, especially as large ones were
concerned, to the likes of likes of William Saurin skippered by Eugène
Riguidel (27.10 metres) or Charente Maritime II, Royale II and Formule
Tag. The event kept on growing and in 1983, the fourth edition of the
Trophée des Multicoques gathered no less than thirty-three offshore racing
boats and twenty-five racer-cruisers!
Defined by
the organizers as the “festival of multihulls”, the event will come back next
summer, from Tuesday 28 to Friday 31 August 2018, visiting several
locations in and around Brittany’s Morbihan region. The Trophée will run some
two months before the start of the Route du Rhum, scheduled for November 4,
2018, and is intended to be both competitive racing and a social get-together
for the skippers having their final training in the run-up of the singlehanded
transatlantic race.
An unmissable meeting
Organizers
expect to have a huge line-up, with no less than seven big trimarans -thirty
metres and over- like IDEC-Sport, Sodebo Ultim, Spindrift,
Actual, MACIF, Gitana 17 and Banque Populaire IX;, at least seven Multi50s
FenétreA-Mix Buffet, French Tech Rennes-Saint Malo, Réauté Chocolat, Arkema,
Celia Village, Drékan Group and Solidaires en Peloton-ARSEP, plus
the maxi-trimaran Prince de Bretagne, and the MOD-70s Concise,
Maserati, Phaedo, and boats from the former ORMA class.
Entrants to
Route du Rhum like Acapella, Friends & Lovers and Happy and
some and the ‘golden oldies’ Hydrofolie, PIR2, Moxie, Gordano Goose, Nova,
Région de Picardie, VSD, may also take part. Supported by
ports and clubs from the Morbihan area, the Trophée des Multicoques 2018 will
visit stopovers between Lorient and Vannes, including Quiberon, La
Trinité sur Mer, and the Gulf of Morbihan and will be made up of offshore and
coastal courses for larger and smaller boats respectively. Rendez-vous is set
from Tuesday 28 to Friday 31 August 2018, for a celebration of multihulls
sailing, offshore and ashore.
Potential
skippers/teams:
Francis
Joyon (IDEC Sport), Sébastien Josse (Gitana 17), Yann Guichard (Spindrift),
Yves Le Blévec (Actual), Armel Le Cléac’h (Banque Populaire IX),
Thomas Coville (Sodebo), Lionel Lemonchois (Prince de Bretagne),
Armel Tripon (Réauté Chocolat), Charlie Capelle (Acapella), Loïck
Peyron (Happy)…
For more
information, please contact the organizers:
Association
Trophée des Multicoques, 37, route de l’Océan – 56470 - Saint-Philibert - France
Mail :
tropheedesmulticoques@gmail.com
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento