JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #100 - Special JEC Asia - October 2015 - 56

revival

boat using non-destructive ultrasound testing. The person who worked on the boat
for a week at the beginning of this refit,
who had already worked on it during the
construction back in 2003, found no sign of
fatigue, delamination or damage. When the
stern plates were cut to incorporate stairs,
we took samples in the deckline UD beams.
Tests performed at Cetim confirmed that
the compression strength of these beams
was the same as when the boat was built
ten years and 70,000 miles ago.
JCM: The boat's weight has increased from
about 30 metric tons to more than 50.
Which parts did you have to redesign and/
or reinforce?

Y.P. : The central arm insert areas were
reinforced at the hulls to resist surge loads,
where the windward hull continues to
advance while the leeward hull crashes into
a wave, or during a nosedive. The porthole
openings. And to be able to keep the same
mast, we installed strain sensors on the
shrouds, linked up to a management unit
for maximum loads, located in the rigging.
Visual and sound alarms and automatic
easing for the mainsail sheet jack were
put in to avoid exceeding the admissible
design loads. These loads correspond to the
stresses for the Orange 2 in the 33 MT load
displacement with crew configuration.
JCM: After the event, would you say that

and an outdoor living room, as well as
all the expected convenience equipment for a cruising boat this size,
without adding too much weight.

A real technical challenge

Deck plan

- a compromise solution had to be
found to preserve the boat's speed.
The job involved integrating a living
space to accommodate a large mess
area, a galley-bar, the owner's cabin

To avoid sailing with a higher righting moment than what the catamaran
was initially designed for (240 metric
tons x metres), strain gauges were
integrated into the rigging. In this
way, the crew is constantly informed
of the loads on the boat and can sail
safely at high speeds. Transforming an
unconventional boat into the world's
fastest cruising yacht constituted both
the appeal and the challenge of this
project.
The technical challenge lay in the
calculations carried out by Hervé
Devaux Structures (HDS). Originally,
Orange 2 had a load displacement of

Vitalia II characteristics
Design and construction:
Multiplast - Carboman Group
Exterior design:
Daniel Domergue - Narrative (Montreuil)
Interior design:
Stéphane Lauro - Domicile Fixe (Vannes)
Interior fittings: Gilbert Foucault and Antoine
Lottin - Golfe Agencement (Vannes)

Year: 2015
Overall length: 36.80 meters
Width: 16.90 meters
Air draught: 48.00 meters
Displacement: 50 metric tons
Upwind sail area: 700 m²
Downwind sail area: 1000 m²

56 jec composites magazine / No100 October 2015

Launching in front of Multiplast (April 15)

composite materials lend themselves well
to this type of exercise?

Y.P. : Yes, of course. There's no doubt
about it.
33 metric tons, compared to Vitalia
II's 52 MT. So, to ensure the safety
of the boat and its crew, it is always
important to avoid exceeding the initial righting moment, and this entails
informing the skipper of the loads on
the rigging through the use of strain
gauges placed on the axes of the lower
shrouds and mast stays. A hydraulic
jack system serves to ease the mainsail
sheet automatically once the maximum loads are reached; here, it is out
of the question to sail the boat on a
single hull!
The link arm inserts into the floats
were reinforced to compensate for the
boat's increased inertia.

The Vitalia II programme
The sea trials started after the launch,
and were to last at least a month.
The skipper Vladimir Dzalba Lyndis
(one of Bruno Peyron's former crew
members who sailed on both Orange
catamarans in the early 2000s) and
his crew sailed the boat down to
the Mediterranean. In April, a new
website was set up to communicate
the details on the transformation and
follow the navigation. n
More information:
www.multiplast.eu
http://www.multiplast.eu
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #100 - Special JEC Asia - October 2015
