Cite de la voile - Mecridi 15/10

We met at 9am at the Cite de la voile (world of sailing) http://www.citevoile-tabarly.com/ to visit the Eric Tabarly Museum and the Groupama2 trimaran! Very lucky indeed as there are very few people who get a personal visit on board these amazing exspensive ($4millon euro) trimarans! They cost 2 million euro per year to operate and have a racing life span of 4 to 5 years. The crew usually consists of 6 persons and the living space is very small and tight!

After the visit to the Groupama trimaran http://www.cammas-groupama.com/fr/index.jsp we headed over to the Eric Tabarly Museum. What an exceptional human being he was! All his designs were well before the times in which he designed boats and has been one of the most famous French men in history. The bottom level held all an exhibition of his life. The second level was about the boats he designed and the history of sailing. There were some very interesting inter-active displays including mini sail boats to race around a small pool, a simulator of riding on a Trimaran which was amazing and also some mapping tests and steering of a sailing boat which was harder than you would think trying to keep it on course – the machine told Stephan he should take a rest under an apple tree as he must be feeling very sick from going round and round in a circle!!! After the museum we were treated to a fabulous lunch and then the afternoon to work on our blogg!!! The largest racing trimaran in the world is shown in the following photos is was launched several weeks ago is currently undergoing testing.
http://www.voile.banquepopulaire.fr/

The evening involved a presentation to several of the Rotary clubs.