Club Med Sails

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Named and launched on May 8th, the maxi-catamaran Club Med co-skippered by the New Zealander Grant Dalton received her mast at the beginning of the week and has sailed for the first time.
While the launching of a boat is always a very emotional happening – it is the fulfilment of thousands of hours of work – there always remains much to do before sailing. In effect, stepping the mast first of all, requires an enormous amount of precision. All the shrouds that support the mast should fall right and be perfectly adjusted. Even more so when it is a rotating mast, the mast foot ball should allow unrestricted movement. To make this manoeuvre easier, Multiplast

did a "trial" run on May 7th, that's to say a test to make sure that all the shrouds and stays were adjusted to exactly the right length but leaving the mast suspended from the crane. During the week that followed the launching, while a team was putting the finishing touches to the mast, traction tests with a dynamometer were carried out on all traction points.

First sail

As soon as the mast was in place, Club Med joined her trial base in the port of la Trinité-sur-Mer 30 mils (55 km) away. Already during the naming ceremony, the manoeuvrability under power appeared extremely easy, Club Med turning within her own length with no difficulty. With the mast in place, she proved just as easy to handle. But what everybody was waiting for was to see her sailing. The only information we can give today before her first major outing on May 19th, is that the catamaran designed by the Gilles Ollier Design Team is very much at ease on the water, nicely within her marks and that with mast alone and a solent jib (200 m²), in 15 knots of wind, the speedometer quickly climbed to 17 knots. And under main sail with 2 reefs and staysail, 30 knots has been easily reached with 17 kts of wind !
Rendezvous in a few days time for the first comments of Jean Maurel, the boat's and the Design Team's technical manager.