Crowdfunding for L’Hydroptère 2.0

A French/American team wants to preserve the ‘Concorde of the seas’ and resurrect it as a testing and development platform for innovations.

High-tech is fast being overtaken by new high-tech and is much sooner (involuntarily) faced with a choice: preserve or scrap. A unique and revolutionary ship from 1994 is in danger of missing the chance to become history. At least that is what Gabriel Terrasse and his team think. They want to preserve Éric Tabarly’s last spectacular innovation and give it a new future.

The dream of Éric Tabarly

This story begins back in the late 1960’s when sailing legend Éric Tabarly dreamed of making sailing ships fly just above the water using hydrofoils. Tabarly, winner of the second Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race in 1964, initially began experimenting with home-made structures. In January 1979, he met ‘pastis king’ Paul Ricard and just two weeks later, construction of the trimaran Paul Ricard began. After a huge race against the clock with many trials and modifications, the boat was launched in the Transat in 1980 and finally pulverised Charlie Bar’s record after 75 years.

L’Hydroptère ‘1.0’

In 1994, Tabarly designed the L’Hydroptère with the then still little-known sailor and entrepreneur Alain Thébault. Tens of millions dollars went into the ship. The design is by VPLP Design, known today for the America’s Cup and Vendée Globe racing monsters as well as wind-assisted cargo ships like the Canopée. But a lot of knowledge and research was also invested by aircraft manufacturers Dassault and Airbus. In addition to hydrofoils, the ship has wide wings to the outiggers that provide a ground effect as in the illustrious ‘Caspian Sea Monster’ Ekranoplan.

A speed of 35 knots was achieved soon after its launch in 1995. But the ship also proved to be fragile. We have now entered the video age, and YouTube still features videos from around the turn of the century with much spectacle due to breaking off floats and sudden duck-and-turtle of the entire ship.

On the night of 12-13 June 1998, Tabarly died in a tragic accident in the Irish Sea. On the historic Pen Duick, where it all began, he was swept overboard by the gaff while lowering the mainsail and drowned. From then on, L’Hydroptère is Alain Thébault’s project.

50-knot limit

Over the years, many changes were made to L’Hydroptère. From 2005, it is financed by Swiss bank Lombard Odier & Co and the goal is to break the magic 50-knot barrier in a record attempt controlled by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. It succeeded on 4 September 2009 with 52.86 knots (97.90 km/h) over 500 m. During unofficial trials, the 100 km/h barrier had been broken several times in the meantime.

Record attempt over the Pacific Ocean

In 2013, with new backers, Thébault attempted to break the record on the Los Angeles – Honolulu crossing (2215 nautical miles). On departure, he announced several follow-up projects such as a ship to reach 100 knots and cross the Atlantic in 3 days. But L’Hydroptère arrived in Honolulu more than a day too late to break Olivier de Kersauson’s 2006 record.
Thébault suddenly lost interest in L’Hydroptère. Probably his young family played a role in this. The ship remained plundered and neglected in Honolulu and was put up for auction as an abandoned vessel by the authorities in 2016.

L’Hydroptère 2.0

In 2019, Gabriel Terrasse (FR) Chris Welsh (USA) bought the ship for just $8500 and started looking for financiers for its costly repair and transport to France. After the most necessary repairs, it was sailed to San Francisco. In 2021, Welsh suddenly passed away. Now Gabriel Terrasse, who had put a lot of his own money into it, was on his own in the project.
Meanwhile, with the help of the Airbus transport ship, L’Hydroptère made it to France.
Now there is a team with 3 full-time employees and about 8 consultants in addition to Terrasse. They want to make L’Hydroptère a testing and development platform, targeting companies, research labs and universities. These include testing materials, coatings and paint products, mechanical and electronic systems or simply PR.

The organisation also owns the smaller L’Hydroptère.ch, with which the University of Lausanne conducted trials on Lake Geneva in the first decade of this century.

Crowdfunding

To raise the required 150,000 Euros, a crowdfunding has been set up. Click here, English at the bottom. This is aimed at companies, but the little ones can get in too. For € 50 your name is on the hull, for € 800 you can embark for a sail (or fly) trip once.

Alain Thébault 2.0

Alain Thébault, now an entrepreneur in electric water taxis, is also suddenly interested in L’Hydroptère again, but in a negative sense. He is very active on social media, where he loudly criticizes this plan. According to Alain, there is only one place where L’Hydroptère belongs: in the museum. “It is like a handyman claiming he can fly an old, rusty Concorde again.” In an interview with Ouest France, he even threatened legal action and claims for damages. This, of course, does not help. Since he left the ship unattended and without port fees in 2015, it surprises many in the sailing world.

And that speed record?

That was broken by a kitesurfer just a year later, and in 2012 Paul Larsen’s Vestas Sailrocket 2 reached 65.45 knots, 121.1 km/h. In our opinion, though, that is still much more of a prototype than L’Hydroptère. The asymmetrical Sailrocket can only sail over starboard and looks extremely uncomfortable from the videos.

More information:

• lhydroptere.com
• YouTube videos L’Hydroptere 2.0
• YouTube videos L’Hydroptère 1.0
• Film ‘Le souffle d’un rêve, histoires de l’Hydroptère‘ (52 min French spoken) on Vimeo. Spectacular footage!

Sources: press kit L’Hydroptère 2.0 and own research