l’Hydroptère.ch breaks one-hour record around Lake Geneva

by Bernard Schopfer on 18 Jul 2012 Whilst attempting to break Lake Geneva’s Blue Ribbon record last week the experimental catamaran l’Hydroptère.ch, crewed by Daniel Schmaeh, Stéphane Dyen, Gaël Ledoux, Guillaume Coyon and Cédric Pochelon, broke the one-hour speed record with an average speed of 25.25 knots.

L’Hydroptère.ch had already held the best time over one hour since the end of 2011, with an average speed of 22.66 knots, and has now improved on this with an average speed of 25.25 knots. This is the equivalent of covering the distance from Geneva to Lausanne in a straight line, or from Nyon to Vevey, in one hour.

'I am very proud of how the crew performed,' said Thierry Lombard, owner of the sailing boat and founder of the Hydros project. 'We’ve had a new crew since the start of the season, led by skipper Daniel Schmaeh and a team of very talented young sailors under the supervision of Jérémie Lagarrigue. This first attempt is extremely promising, and the adjustments made by our design team this winter have clearly paid off.'

L’Hydroptère.ch covered the outbound course between Geneva and Le Bouveret in a time of one hour 44 minutes, which represents the absolute speed record on this course. It also improved its best performance over the course by 18 minutes. 'We were never at our limit,' says Stéphane Dyen, who is not only designer of l’Hydroptère.ch and its famous foils, but also the bowman and crew member responsible for adjusting the catamaran’s foils. 'We are convinced that the Blue Ribbon record is well within our reach. We just need a bit of luck with the weather to beat it.'

Jérémie Lagarrigue, head of the Hydros project, stresses that 'the conditions were not optimal. Our objective was to survey the course with our new crew, so this result exceeded our expectations. The one-hour record is the icing on the cake. It’s a great reward for all the hard work that we have done, and clearly demonstrates that hydrofoils generate less drag and therefore have a higher energy Hydroptere website