TROPHÉE JULES VERNE

SAILING CIRCUMNAVIGATION TROPHY

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SAILING RACE: The official language of the “Jules Verne Trophy” is French. The French version of these rules shall prevail over any other version in other languages.

The "Trophée Jules Verne" was the subject of a public order of the visual arts delegation with the American artist Tom Shannon and is patroned by the French Ministry of Culture.

The work is a floating hull on a magnetic field, much as an anchorage for a ship. All dimensions have rigorous symbolic meaning. The midship beam of the hull corresponds to the diameter of the Earth, the ray of each end is proportional to that of the moon and the radius of the curvature of the frames is that of the sun. The competitors of the Trophy Jules Verne race around the Earth against time, with only the sun and the moon as companions and time keepers.

The sculpture is placed on a cast aluminium base, on which the names of the sailors having won the Trophy are engraved. The Musée national de la Marine in Paris hosts and maintains the Trophy. Each winner receives a miniature of the Trophy, magnetized like the original one.

When a record is broken, an official ceremony is held for the previous record holders to hand over the trophy to the new record holders, who are given the hull and must place it in its magnetic field mooring.

The value of this trophy is not so much in the raw materials or time taken in crafting, it is due to the unique nature of the design. All of which pales when it comes to the extraordinary sums expended by the competing teams. Making it the sport of millionaires, or even billionaires - where the technology has reached a peak. Meaning that design and build costs are beyond the budgets of mere mortals. For this reason, the cost of cars in Formula One had to be capped. To give fresh faces a chance of competing on more even terms.

The same may be said of the America's Cup and the Blue Riband (Hales Trophy).

At the time of writing, the cost of competing in the JVH2 is affordable, mainly because the technology is in its infancy. That means a competitor might purchase an existing fast powerboat hull, and simply bolt in an internal combustion engine that is converted to run on hydrogen gas, ammonia or methanol. So avoiding the expense of fuels cells and electric drives, batteries, etc.

As the competition advances the science of zero emission powerboating, caps may have to be introduced to allow teams from academia to compete, even assuming corporate backing.

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.tropheejulesverne.org/en/

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The JVH2 Trophy is inspired in part by the Eiffel Tower & Statue of Liberty.