January 24, 2019
Le Clet to build a new trimaran
French Banque Populaire has announced that it will build a new Ultime maxi-trimaran for skipper Armel Le Clet.
This decision was made two and a half months after the Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe transatlantic solo race 340 miles northeast of the Azores turned over, and then the famous Banque Populaire IX almost collapsed during the storm. This is his remains, delivered to the Spanish Vigo, you see in the picture.
Skipper Le Clet, unlike the ship, was not injured then, but in his own words, he experienced a real shock when the trimaran so dear to his heart ceased to exist. “However, one must not stop, one must move forward,” says Le Claes. “We told our colleagues from other teams about what happened, so that they also draw conclusions, and the incident did not happen again.”
Coincidentally, this year marks 30 years since the moment when one of the largest French banks, Banque Populaire, began to render assistance to the country's sailing. It was decided to continue the cooperation: as you already know, a new Ultime maxi-trimaran will be built for the bank’s money for Armel, which will be called Banque Populaire XI.
Design bureaus VPLP Design and GSea Design will work on the project, the trimaran will be built at the Multiplast and CDK Technologies shipyards. It is planned that the new – and, importantly, innovative – vessel will be launched in late 2020 or early 2021.
In addition, Banque Populaire announced that they had chosen the young (she is not yet 30 years old) Clariss Kremer as their official skipper for the upcoming Vendée Globe. The racer will be given a new yacht class Imoca 60.
Kremer will be preparing for Vendée Globe for all the same Armel Le Clet, who, we recall, won the same round-the-world race, held in 2016-17.
301 January 24, 2019 # 8737
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