Written for the occasion of the Brest Atlantic, this book aims to present a class of trimarans. The Brest Atlantic is a race that starts from Brest in November 2019, reserved for trimarans in the Ultim 32/23 class. Today only 4 of them are starting out to complete a course on the North Atlantic and then the South Atlantic, a kind of triangle (or eight to respect the weather) to connect Brest with Rio, Cape Town and back to Brest.
The technical part of the book is fascinating with a real detailed analysis of these boats, wonderful 32 m long machines that architects, technicians and finally sailors are trying to fly over the oceans, just propelled by the wind. There is a description of this category of sailboat with interviews with architects explaining the problems of these extraordinary sailboats. Illustrated with splendid photos, the large format of the book printed on heavy and shiny paper delights the eye.
But the rest of the book is very disappointing. We feel that the director of this book, written by several authors, has hung up ideas to fill the gap, ideas that do not necessarily have their place behind the title "The odyssey of flying sailboats".
Indeed, you will find a jumbled presentation of the world tours starting with the one of Magellan whose 500th anniversary is celebrated in 2019. There are also portraits of a wide variety of skippers who do not take part in this very closed world of Ultims. Finally, in the middle of the book, we discover photos of Brest, the starting point of the Atlantic Brest, but images that are totally out of scope when we have just scrolled through some splendid illustrations of trimarans.
In the middle of these chapters with no real links, double pages with the 5 portraits of the skippers who race in Ultimate: Gabart, Coville, Le Blevec, Le Cléa'h, Cammas and Caudrelier. Finally, a novel of anticipation imagining what the race might be like in a few decades concludes this book strangely.
This book would rather be a running program with a presentation of the class, the starting city and the forces involved. Wanting to present it in a book, a beautiful book, moreover, because of the quality of the images, is an exercise that loses the reader, unfortunately selling him wind at a high price.
Ultimate horizons: the odyssey of flying sailboats
- Anamosa Publishing
- 24.7 x 28.6 cm
- 175 pages
- 39.00 euros
