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Caption: Flying Boat Aboard the fastest sailing boat
Caption: A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited by Alain Thébault to ride with him aboard the “Hydroptère”, the fastest sailing boat on the planet.
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Caption: We left from the San Pedro Marina, in Southern California, on a Thursday afternoon and after a very precise setting of the sails, Alain let the Hydroptère take off.
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Caption: This racing trimaran is an amazing machine, capable of accelerating from 20 for 45 knots (37 to 83 km/h) in 10 seconds. It can reach a top speed of 56.3 knots (104 km/hr or almost 65 miles per hour). All in a smooth and quiet environment, except for the exhilarating wind brushing your ears as you fly at more than 10 feet over the ocean.
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Caption: The secret of this extraordinary bird resides in its foils that lift up the whole boat once it reaches 10 knots. At full speed, only 2.5 m2 of the boat are in contact with the water. It combines glide and perfection to justify its name, "Hydroptère" (in Greek, hydros means “water” and “ptere” means “wing”).
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Caption: Thanks to its advanced design, L’Hydroptère can move at twice the speed of the wind. Combining advanced engineering with a clean technology, it prefigures what could be maritime transportation of the future.
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Caption: For Alain Thébault and his team, he made a pioneers’ dream come true: “to make a boat fly”. He is already working on a new version of the Hydroptère that will go at 80 knots (150 km/h, 92 mp/h), a performance that could enable sailing to definitely enter the “supercavitation”, the equivalent of supersonic speed for aircrafts.
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Caption: Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
Augustus Hare
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Caption: That afternoon, I had the feeling I was sharing a few hours of Alain's passionate dream.
Caption: Since then, the Hydroptère has sailed off for new adventures in the Pacific. Next time you're by the sea, look on the horizon: you might see a large bird passing by in the sunset, strangely close to the water.
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Caption: Text and photographs by
Claude Budin-Juteau
Additional photographs by
Kai Concept
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