Sailboat: Maxi Solo Trimaran Banque Populaire VII

Banque Populaire VII, formerly Groupama 3, is a sailing trimaran designed for transoceanic record-setting. She is one of the fastest ocean-going sailing vessels in the world. Designed by French based naval architectural firm VPLP and launched in 2006, in 2010 she was retrofitted for single handed racing to take part of the transatlantic race Route du Rhum, who won in 2010 as Groupama 3 with Franck Cammas, and again in 2014 as Banque Populaire VII with Loick Peyron, who ended the race in 7 days and 15 hours, beating the previous record by 2 hours and 10 minutes.

The model is Banque Populaire VII in minifig scale. It is approximately 103 studs long and 74 studs wide and counts of 3219 bricks, except the ones used for the water. The minifig scale is obtained assuming that 1 stud is 1 foot, as for all my other boat models. The included minifig, as you can see in the last attached picture, is French skipper Loick Peyron.

As a LDD model, some parts as the sails and the springboards are made with bricks, but in a real model they could be done using some sort of fabric.

Please notice the details in particular both in the mast and in the cockpit, such as the winches, the rudder wheels, the rail, the mainsail with its sheet and its rail, the green flag of Route du Rhum on the winward hull, the L-shape keels on the side hulls, the mini wind turbine on the stern, the white bicycle in the cockpit (that is used as a winch in the single-handed configuration of the boat), the liferaft attached to the stern on the left of the wind turbine (obtained by means of a white suitcase brick), the radar and instruments domes (one bigger attached to the mast and two smaller to the stern).

For higher res pictures see also my Flickr photostream by clicking the following link: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129019614@N07/

Support if you like the project and stay tuned for next boats... it's time for minifig to go sailing!