Extreme Sailing Series

Last week we posted a video of Red Bull Sailing t-boning Alinghi during the pre-start of racing on the final day of racing in Act 3 of the Extreme Sailing Series in Qingdao, China. The video itself was incredible: Alinghi came in on starboard while Red Bull came in on port. Just as Red Bull attempted to bear away and ducked Alinghi’s transom, a puff hit, causing Red Bull to miss the bear-away. The result: Red Bull slammed the front of their port hull into the back of Alinghi’s port hull in a spectacular collision. Both dispirited crews limped back to the docks, their regattas over.

After the racing concluded, an international jury awarded the Swiss team Alinghi redress for the races that they were forced to miss. A testament to Alinghi’s consistency throughout the regatta’s first three days, the Swiss team won the event. More importantly however, Alinghi passes The Wave, Muscat for first place in the overall season standings! Helmed by Santa Cruz native and Moore 24 sailor Morgan Larson, the two-time America’s Cup-winning syndicate has finished runner-up in the Extreme Sailing Series in both 2012 and 2013. Perhaps 2014 is Alinghi’s year! Go Morgan!

On the topic of cool videos of multihulls, check out this mini-documentary on how to completely rebuild a maxi-trimaran. Sodebo has just launched their new Sodebo Ultim at the Multiplast yard in France. Originally built as Geronimo in 2001, the VPLP-designed maxi-tri at one time held the Jules Verne Trophy for fastest outright circumnavigation and also famously sailed in San Francisco twice, en route to shattering the existing records between San Francisco and Yokohama, both westbound and then back eastbound. Skippered by Thomas Coville, Sodebo Ultim will be sailed solo in this November’s Route du Rhum before chasing solo sailing records and sailing in the new Collectif Ultim maxi-multihull league.