Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Hydroptere project to create a world record-breaking flying boat that will go around the world in 40 days is moving from lab phase to boat-building in two locations in Switzerland and France, the group has announced. Drawings were unveiled in Lausanne this week for the lab boat, Hydroptere.ch (see image) which will be a reduced scale version of the final Hydroptere Maxi boat.

The smaller boat will be tested on Lake Geneva, closer to the group’s offices in Lausanne and the EPFL laboratories. The Lausanne polytechnic school is the official research partner.

The current Hydroptere catamaran officially broke the world sailing speed barrier at 61 knots in 2008. Alain Thébault and his team are now researching and testing

The construction work is being shared by shipyards B&B in La Trinité sur Mer, which has already started building the centreboard and the cross beams and Décision SA in Ecublens, which will start construction work in June.

Ed. note: GenevaLunch will be supplying more images later after we resolve a technical problem.

Related:

• “Hydroptere breaks sailing speed barrier again,” 12 December 2008, GenevaLunch
• About the project, Hydroptere
• Racing video clip, TSR, October 2008

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.