On 25 August, several personalities from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region visited the construction site of the catamaran Le SeaKite in Gujan-Mestras as well as the premises of the company Beyond the Sea. The objective for the members of President Alain Rousset’s cabinet and the people in charge of innovation within the Region was to discover the state of progress of the automated kite traction project carried by our company.
“Very happy to see the superb result of Beyond the Sea’s SeaLab/Seakite collaborative project, in partnership with ERMA ENERGY, ADV Propulse and Arkema ! Great prospects for the decarbonisation of the nautical industries! See you soon for the baptism in the port of Arcachon”, declared Céline Augé-Thomas, in charge of competitiveness and innovation for the Region, at the end of the visit.
As for Marion Gust, Deputy Director General of Services in charge of economic and environmental development, she said straight away: “This is a very good project, totally in line with the regional Neo Terra roadmap! The acceleration of transitions is underway. We’re jumping into the water here !
During this visit, Yves Parlier, founder of Beyond the Sea, underlined the unwavering support of the New Aquitaine Region and the commitment of its president to innovation. “The New Aquitaine Region has enabled us to carry out this complete refit of the former Hydraplaneur into the SeaKite, a catamaran demonstrator of kite traction. Today, we are entering a new phase of the project. We are going to launch this boat and carry out a whole series of tests that will enable us to develop our automated traction system using kite wings of 50 to 200 m2”.
Beyond the Sea has asked the New Aquitaine Region to continue its support and help finance the enormous amount of R&D work that will be carried out on board the catamaran Le SeaKite. This work will ultimately enable the development of a system that can be adapted to all types of vessels with a view to decarbonising international maritime transport and all navies.
