Douce France ("Sweet France") is a 138 feet luxury sailing
catamaran
A Formula 16 beachable catamaran
Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States
A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...
design by
VPLP design and built by Alumarine in
Brittany (France).
At its launch in 1998, she was the largest sailing cat ever built and won most innovative Sailing Yacht 1999 - Showboats Design Awards. It was built at
Alu Marine also underwent a refit in 2009 and 2015.
The exterior and interior design was done overall by Peteghem & Lauriot Prevost (
VPLP design).
The vessel is known for a panoramic window interior lounge, one of the areas along with the teak wood aft deck, upper level cockpit, and the interior cabins in the twin hulls.
The Douce France was the largest sail catamaran in the World, and significant step from previous designs in this history of these type of vessels.
Douce France has been analyzed in attempts to build similar large sailing catamarans especially for luxury cruising. Typical sail cruise speed is 9 knots and maximum speed under sail is 19 knots.
This vessel has twin diesel engines and can motor at 12 knots.
The hulls are made of
aluminum.
Typically operating as Charter vessel in the South Pacific, it has six cabins and has various items to support
hospitality business, such as
wine cellar and various
tender
Tender may refer to:
Entertainment Film
* ''Illegal Tender'' (2007), a film directed by Franc. Reyes
* ''Tender'' (2012), a short film by Liz Tomkins
* ''Tender'' (2019), a short film by Darryl Jones and Anthony Lucido
* ''Tender'' (2019), a sh ...
s.
Specifications:
*Length (Overall) 42.2m / 138.5'
*Length (waterline) 38.25m / 125.5 ft
*Beam 15.4 meters
*Draft 2.5 meters
*Sail area - 206m2
*
Gross tonnage
Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weigh ...
- 218 gt
*Displacement - 120 tons
As of 2018 the vessel is flagged to Belgium.
Designers
Design firm was
VPLP design and it was built at Chantier Naval Alumarine in 1998.
*Naval Architecture:Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prevost, Marc Van Peteghem
**Additional designers: Vincent Lauriot-Prevost
*Interior Designers: Anne-Monique Bonadei
Legacy
The same design firm went on make an even larger sailing catamaran, the 145 foot ''Hemisphere''.
The sponsors of that yacht spent time aboard the ''Douce France'', which aided in developing that yacht which was completed in 2011.
Unlike ''Douce France'', ''Hemisphere'' has quarters outside the hulls and additional deck but carried on tradition of a large deck area.
See also
*
List of large sailing yachts
*
Hemisphere (yacht) (44.2 m sailing catamaran yacht)
*
IDEC SPORT (Sailing trimaran won Jules Verne trophy for circumnavigation)
References
{{Reflist
External links
Douce France details
Individual catamarans
1998 ships
Sailing yachts designed by VPLP
Sailing yachts built in France