While the 50ft flying catamarans competing at SailGP Portsmouth this weekend will be impressive, charging out of the opposite western end of the Solent from 1120 BST on Saturday 26 July will be four giant 32m long by 23m wide flying Ultim trimarans taking part in the 100th anniversary edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Rolex Fastnet Race. They too are capable of speeds approaching 50 knots but will average 35-40 for long periods.
SVR-Lazartigue returns as defending Rolex Fastnet Race champion and record holder © Guillaume Gatefait
The Ultim’s 2023 winner and outright race record holder returns. Under François Gabart, Tom Laperche and their team, SVR-Lazartigue was first into Cherbourg two years ago setting a new record time of 1 day 8 hours 38 minutes 27 seconds, almost a day ahead of the first monohull. However their average speed of 21.3 knots was still less than the 21.7 knots that her rival Maxi Edmond de Rothschild managed into Plymouth in 2019, (a historic finish that saw Gabart’s MACIF pipped to the post by less than a minute) and substantially less than the 27.2 knots Gabart managed when he had set a non-stop singlehanded round the world record in 2017.
Tom Laperche in SVR-Lazartigue's famous 'Spitfire-style' cockpit © Guillaume Gatefait
Tom Laperche is now SVR-Lazartigue’s skipper. Gabart is not on board, but has an accomplished replacement in Franck Cammas, past winner of the Volvo Ocean Race and Route du Rhum as well as a Jules Verne Trophy record on his own maxi-trimaran, Groupama 3.
Laperche says: “The Rolex Fastnet Race is an emblematic race in the international sailing world, although culturally more Anglo-Saxon than our classic offshore and singlehanded races. It has great diversity of very beautiful, mostly privately-owned boats. I took part for the first time two years ago on SVR-Lazartigue. The start was really impressive. It’s fairly restricted, especially for Ultims and especially in wind conditions like we had two years ago, but it was exciting and it went well: we were first out of the Solent, neck and neck with Banque Populaire. I really remember the return from the Fastnet Rock, flying almost all of the way back to Cherbourg. We started at daybreak at the Fastnet and at sunset we were already at the entrance to Cherbourg Harbour! We had a very good race…”
For the Rolex Fastnet Race SVR-Lazartigue’s crew of six will also include three-time America’s Cup winning skipper and 49er gold medallist Peter Burling. This follows another of Burling’s Luna Rossa teammates, James Spithill, who raced on board in 2019. “I’ve always loved offshore racing — that’s what led me to The Ocean Race,” says Burling. “The Ultim class is the pinnacle of high-performance offshore sailing. These boats are incredibly innovative and versatile.”
Actual Ultim 4 was unveiled in her new livery this week © ATM Communication
The biggest news in the Ultim fleet, aside from the launch this coming autumn of the new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild/Gitana 18 Ultim, is the rechristening of their old boat, now under new ownership and with new livery as Actual Ultim 4.
Impressively this is the fifth multihull and fourth giant trimaran to bear the name of the French employment agency, the previous Actual having been Gabart’s 2015 vintage MACIF, which the team acquired in 2021 for skipper Yves le Blevec (20 years after Actual first sponsored him in the Mini Transat). In 2023 le Blevec handed over Actual’s reins to current skipper Anthony Marchand. Originally launched in 2017, the Guillaume Verdier-designed Gitana 17’s successful career to date includes winning last year’s Arkea Ultim Challenge Brest race singlehanded non-stop around the world under skipper Charles Caudrelier.
Over the winter the Actual team has been refitting its new steed which was formally relaunched this week with the Rolex Fastnet Race set to be her first outing. Marchand will be supported by a crew including co-skipper Julien Villion and British Figaro/Ocean Race sailor Alan Roberts.
Having twice finished second, could 2025 be Banque Populaire's year for a Rolex Fastnet Race win? © Arnaud Pilpré
Armel le Cleac’h and his team on Maxi Banque Populaire XI are coming in hot from winning two warm-up events with an eye to defending his title in this autumn’s doublehanded Transat Café-L'OR (ex Transat Jacques Vabre) once again with Seb Josse.
Thomas Coville's Sodebo Ultim 3 shows off her foiling ability © Leonard Legrand - Team Sodebo
While Banque Populaire has sponsored sailing since 1989, from the French Olympic team up to the IMOCA and Ultim, equally impressive is how Vendée-based pizza, pasta and sandwich maker Sodebo has backed one individual since 1999: Thomas Coville. Coville has also been racing maxi trimarans longer than anyone currently in the class, following his first experience setting a Jules Verne Trophy record in 1997 on board Olivier de Kersauson’s Sport-Élec. Coville campaigned an ORMA 60 in the early 2000s for Sodebo before moving into the first of three Ultim trimarans in 2007.
Aboard his latest, Sodebo Ultim 3, launched in 2019 © Vincent Curutchet - Team Sodebo
Aboard his latest, launched in 2019 (recognisable by her cabin/bridge located forward of her mast), Coville finished second in an event almost designed for him, given his huge round the world experience– the Arkea Ultim Challenge Brest, a solo non-stop round the world race for the Ultims. His Rolex Fastnet Race record includes third places in both 2019 and 2021.
Background
While maxi trimarans have existed since the 1970s and 75 and 85 footers were established as ‘length-only limitation’ multihull classes in the 1980s, it was the pioneering multihulls undertaking the Jules Verne Trophy (non-stop round the world record), notably Bruno Peyron, first holder of the Jules Verne Trophy in 1993, aboard the 86ft catamaran Commodore Explorer that are direct predecessors of the present day Ultims. Peyron followed this up commissioning three 110ft catamarans to be built for his event The Race in 2000 and then his next Jules Verne Trophy record breaker the 120ft catamaran Orange II in 2004.
But from the mid-2000s, trimarans have fully taken over. In 2006 Franck Cammas launched the 103ft Groupama 3, upon which the Ultim class would later be based. In 2010 the superhuman Cammas succeeded in setting a new fully crewed Jules Verne Trophy record and then later that same year, with Groupama 3 fitted with a cut-down rig, he won the Route du Rhum singlehanded across the Atlantic, proving that it is possible not just to sail but to race these triple-hulled giants singlehanded.
2008 saw the launch of what to date is the world’s longest racing trimaran, Banque Populaire V. Under original skipper Pascal Bidegorry in 2009 she set a west to east transatlantic record of 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes and 48 seconds that stands to this day. In 2011 under new skipper Loick Peyron, she was the first giant multihull to make an impression on the Rolex Fastnet Race (although Tony Bullimore raced his 100ft catamaran Team Pimsic in 2003), setting a new race record of 1 day 8 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds. She went on to establish a new Jules Verne Trophy time the following year. She was subsequently first home in the next two editions of the Rolex Fastnet Race as Dona Bertarelli and Yann Guichard’s Spindrift 2.
With more giant trimarans being built so the Ultim 32/23 class was formally established as ‘Collectif Ultim’ in January 2018 with Sodebo’s Patricia Brochard as President. Ultims are thus limited in LH to 32m and beam to 23m, air draft to 110% of the longest hull and freeboard to 1.7m. Around this time several teams started investigating the fitting of foils to provide vertical lift, dramatically improving their performance. The 2018 Route du Rhum saw the first generation of ‘flying’ Ultimes, a technology that has been evolving within the class ever since, with its present state of the art set to exit the Solent at pace in just over a week’s time.
