A new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild fully geared towards flight
by Gitana Team 6 May 07:32 NZST
Construction site of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild - Gitana 18 © G.Le Corre / polaRYSE / GITANA S.A
In December 2023, Ariane de Rothschild officially announced the start of construction for a new oceanic maxi-trimaran designed to venture ever further along the path towards offshore flight initiated by her predecessor, Gitana 17, the 1st large multihull conceived and tweaked to fulfil this brief.
Since then, the whole of Gitana Team, together with the teams associated with naval architect Guillaume Verdier and the members of the CDK Technologies yard, have been hard at work. The future 32-metre giant is gradually taking shape, a day at a time, away from the glare of public curiosity. The assembly phase for the composite platform is in full swing with work due to complete in late September.
Starting from a clean slate
The decision to favour offshore racing was a quick and natural one within the context of Ariane and Benjamin de Rothschild's family passion. The blend of humility and commitment that the discipline demands, not to mention the element of adventure, which is always part and parcel of journeying into the high seas, perfectly aligns with their ambition to perpetuate the legendary Gitana lineage.
All eyes will be on the 28th addition to the fold, a particularly eagerly awaited arrival.
"Gitana 18 is kind of the apotheosis of many things that we already knew and that we could have done before but perhaps we hadn't dared to do. Having the opportunity to get a project like this up and running after seven years of sailing Gitana 17 also enables us to put all our ideas to work within a new project, starting completely from scratch," admits Sébastien Sainson, head of Gitana Team's design office and one of the central figures in the construction of the future Maxi Edmond de Rothschild.
A Gitana / Verdier design devised using a collaborative approach
To design this new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, the five-arrow team has also had to raise its level of expertise in terms of design. Featuring eight people working full-time, the in-house design office comprises a number of young and very talented profiles trained in naval architecture or engineering, resulting in some highly specialised areas of expertise such as structural design analysis... "The design office headed by Sébastien Sainson has witnessed massive growth since 2017 with some extremely talented people. There's a lot of diversity among the people who have joined the office, which is a real strength as we all have something to learn from one another. Ideas come from all over. It's really rewarding having lots of people working together to achieve a very ambitious common goal. It's kind of like we've created a work of art together... it's extraordinary," enthuses Guillaume Verdier.
To create Gitana 18, nearly 50,000 hours of study will be necessary compared with 35,000 hours for Gitana 17, which was already a very substantial figure within this sphere of work.
"Our key strength within Gitana is that we're a team and we work with people in-house as well as externally, with the likes of Guillaume Verdier's teams in particular. I think that the success of our projects is really down to this blending of trades and this desire to create things collectively. The ideas, the concepts, are sparked by a great deal of discussion. Each person goes away and works on an idea and then we come together again around the table to see what each person has come up with. Our way of working together wouldn't have been the same without having a joint project from the start involving the genesis of Gitana 17 at that time. It really was a first and we worked on it together, creating a very strong bond in the process," recalls Sébastien.
From Gitana 17 to Gitana 18, ambitious specifications
Looking back at Gitana 17's fabulous track record, which boasts fifteen podiums and ten victories out of the sixteen races contested, including some truly epic competitions like the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe and the Arkea Ultim Challenge, it's clear that carrying on this legacy will require real strength of character! However, according to her designers, this new 32-metre giant will not be short of flair: "Today, I'm not afraid to say that the difference between Gitana 17 and Gitana 18 is greater than it was between Gitana 17 and the previous generation of boats. Everything has been fully optimised for flight. We didn't even raise the question for this boat. We said to ourselves that the boat will be airborne 100% of the time so we've pulled out all the stops to make her as quick as possible when she flies," stresses Sébastien Saison.
"We wanted to challenge ourselves not to create a boat, which was just a small, gradual step up. I believe that we've really made a new technological breakthrough with this boat, in the same way we did in our work on G17. We'll have reworked every element in a bid to futureproof this vessel," concludes Guillaume Verdier.
A new video rendez-vous at the beating heart of the construction
NAD: non-disclosure agreement
The G18 NDA series, a new Gitana x polaRYSE creation made by Guillaume Le Corre, will be released once a month through until the boat is rolled out of the yard, a rendez-vous scheduled for late September.
Episode 1: Design
In a few months' time, Gitana Team will welcome a new boat to the fold, the 28th in the legendary line of boats synonymous with Ariane de Rothschild's family. First announced in December 2023, the new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, bearing the project name Gitana 18, has been in build ever since, just a stone's throw from the team's technical base in Lorient, Brittany. The new 32-metre giant is taking shape in the utmost secrecy at the heart of the CDK Technologies yard.
The design and architectural concept behind this ULTIM is the result of a close collaboration between the five-arrow racing stable's design office and Team Verdier. In this first chapter, Sébastien Sainson, head of Gitana's design team, and Guillaume Verdier, the main naval architect responsible for Gitana 18, share their very special insights. Despite the famous NDA, which surrounds the whole project, they kindly outline the specifications and share the broad brushstrokes of this future record hunter.
Armed with the experience garnered during the wonderful years coloured by the performance of Gitana 17, the pioneer of this new generation of large oceanic multihulls and the very first craft devised and designed to fly in the open ocean, Gitana 18 is a boat created in the same vein as her predecessor. However, due to the fact that she benefits from an incredible wealth of experience and data, the new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild is bound to venture even further: even further into offshore flight and hence rather naturally into general design!