Alain Thébault is to attempt the outright sailing speed record in Hydroptère, a trimaran with foils.Hydroptère has already beat two world speed records and become the fastest sailing boat over one nautical mile and 500 meters, confirming its reliability and performance.

The boat’s underwater wings extract the boat’s hulls from the water when a certain speed is reached. This considerably reduces the ship’s hydrodynamic drag. Alain
Thébault’s Hydroptère was able to ‘fly’ in 1994, thanks to Eric Tabarly’s
support and a partnerships with several aerospace industry heavyweights.

In October 2007, Hydroptère was reconfigured for pure speed in
an attempt to beat the absolute speed record of 49.09 knots (91 km/h) over
500 meters.