Ultime trimarans get ready for solo round the world contest
The Ultim class has announced the first singlehanded race round the world for giant multihulls, the Solo Ultim World Tour.
This will likely be the most challenging ocean sailing race ever held. The solo skippers will need to navigate a course as arduous as the Vendée Globe, but will be doing so in 100ft foiling trimarans with complex appendages capable of sailing at 45 knots, with the ever-present risk of a split-second capsize.
Six of the fastest ocean-racing designs in the world will be taking part in the new solo race round the world, with record-breaking sailors Armel Le Cléac’h, Charles Caudrelier and Thomas Coville among the solo skippers lining up.
The Solo Ultim World Tour will be organised by the hugely experienced event company OC Sport Pen Duick, in collaboration with the Class Ultim 32/23, to start in the autumn of 2023.
The concept was first mooted around 15 years ago, just as the notoriously skittish Orma trimarans were in their final days. A calendar was drawn up for the embryonic Ultim class, building up to a solo around the world race set for December 2019, then called the Brest Oceans. However, in the 2018 Route du Rhum four of the big trimarans suffered severe damage. Armel le Cléac’h’s Banque Populaire IV capsized and broke up mid-atlantic, while the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild lost 10m of one float, Sodebo also suffered structural cracking to one float and Macif lost a foil and a rudder.
History seemed to be repeating itself – in the 2002 Route du Rhum, only three of 18 multihulls had managed to complete the race, and the ensuing capsizes and dramatic rescues saw many sponsors leave the Orma fleet.
However, the Ultim class changed tack, holding a multi-stage double-handed race around the Atlantic in 2019 instead – the Brest Atlantiques. Although several boats suffered damage, three of the four made it around and there were no dramatic rescues.
Meanwhile new boats keep being launched. Banque Populaire commissioned a new Ultim for le Cléac’h, and François Gabart recently launched Svr-lazartigue (see below). Combined with a new Sodebo for Thomas Coville in 2019, and a healthy market for second-hand giant trimarans, the most audacious ocean racing fleet in the world is now attracting entry numbers to rival that of the last one-design Volvo Ocean Race.
Charles Caudrelier, skipper of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild said: “I have always been very drawn to the Vendée Globe, but here, at the helm of the fastest boats on the planet and in flying mode, it is quite simply the ultimate challenge.”
‘Helming the fastest boats on the planet is quite simply the ultimate challenge’