Zephir Project: Unveiling the secrets of absolute glide and contributing to the ecoresponsible world of tomorrow
Our team of enthusiasts and modern time adventurers seeks to unveil the secrets of absolute glide. Our aim is to contribute to tomorrow’s World renewable energies and marine eco-mobility through our innovation. And to set new sailing speed records.
By unveiling the secrets of absolute glide when sailing, we will be able to « Zephirize » anything that glides in the water or in the air, by providing disruptive solutions and create innovative products that are Highly Performing / Accessible & Comfortable / Ecoresponsible.
To become at one with nature and its elements, we need to merge and combine the Best of Man and his know-how with the efficiency of the Bird and the Fish.
This is the ambitious challenge we have set ourselves with AntoineAlbeau. Our French brochure here.
Antoine is the most successful sportsman in the history of French sport with 26 world windsurfing titles and the current world windsurfing speed record holder with 53.27 knots (98.65 km/h).
The windsurf of champion Antoine Albeau is the ideal exploratory laboratory.
A perfect demonstrator of high performance with low carbon footprint.
Together, based on my philosophy of Ultraperformance, we structure #ZephirProject around people and innovation.
A Zephyr wind is blowing to unite Ecoresponsibility, Performance, Humans, Innovation for a Revolution : Z.E.P.H.I.R.
What are the benefits for tomorrow’s World?
Future innovations will naturally be transferable to anything that glides in the water or in the air or draws energy from it (wind power, marine energy, eco-mobility etc…).
They will open up an infinite field of applications with the greatest respect for our planet.
This new form of absolute energy efficiency will be the fruit of our collective intelligence combined with the hightest technology.
One consequence of these discoveries is to take back their record from the super-powerful boats (65.45 knots or more than 121 km/h).
If the human being is at the center of the watersports, it is also and above all the heart of the Zephir project.
The Zephir Project Team
At our side, an international team of 80 experts and 50 companies from the world of competitive sailing (America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, Vendée Globe…) but also from F1, aeronautics and space as well as 3D modeling, design, research on materials, cinema or Artificial Intelligence.
The team’s headliners include Martin Fisher (ex co-designer of the Luna Rossa boat, 36th America’s Cup finalist) now in charge of INEOS’boat for the AC37, Eric Barone (extreme sports champion and world record holder in downhill mountain biking), or Robert Stroj (head designer of NeylPryde’s leading sails). Special recognition goes to our pillars, such as Olivier Ponrouch, Hermès Garanger and Mathieu Orzalesi, who contribute so much through their commitment and expertise.
Fundamentally attached to the transmission, an undeniable factor of success, we also rely on the young generation as witnesses and actors of the project.
Antoine Albeau’s young protégé, Pierre Schmitz, a windsurfing hopeful, and engineering students from ENSTA Paris, Centrale Lyon, ESME-SUDRIA, University Of South Britanny and EM Lyon Business School are actively participating in the project.
At the heart of this technological and managerial breakthrough, the human being is driving a new balance between industry and elements of nature.
#ZephirProject, a concentrate of technologies
Zephir is an industrial project that promotes innovations and patents in many fields. Its strength lies in the synergy of multiple skills and know-how, and in bringing together people who would never have met without this common project. Through an innovative management model based on UltraPerformance, we generate unprecedented results and technological advances that we put at the service of high-level and leisure sports.
Domains explored: Navigation and flight simulators / Biomimetism & Architectured ecoresponsible materials / 3D calculation & On-board measurements / Windtunnel tests & measurements / Big Data & Artificial Intelligence / Augmented Reality & Motion capture / Physiology & Safety…
The milestones of the Zephir Project
The dynamics of the Zephir Project are such that it is taking off without being held back by the crisis and its difficulties.
At the end of November 2021, we tested the first prototypes resulting from our studies and simulations in difficult weather conditions (see video above) before going on in 2022.
On December 3, 2020, we experienced the official launch of #ZephirProject with 4 days of world premiere in the wind tunnel, first in Magny-Cours at ACE and then at IAT-CNAM in Saint-Cyr l’Ecole.
These days allowed the team to explore further the flows on Antoine Albeau’s world record material, as well as a “motion capture” of the dynamic movement of his sails and body using animation film technologies. For analysis purposes, “conceptual designs” developed at Centrale Lyon 30 years ago and other prototypes have been the subject of new experiments.
The next steps of Zephir Project
2024
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- Extensive integrative 3D simulation with major partners + Ecoconception of future prototypes
- Pursue Analysis of the data collected since the tests of nov-dec 2021 (see video)
- Use of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence tools to understand and optimize the collect of data
- New speedsuit prototypes based on 2023 windtunnel test results
- Sea tests of the new prototypes of sails, boards, foils and speedsuits
- New sensors embedded in our high precision data acquisition onboard system
- New developments of our simulators
- Launch of research on biomimetism and low carbon footprint architectural materials
- First tests of the enhanced windsurfing technologies
- First World Record attempts using boards with fins and foils
2025: More performance and comfort with increasingly ecoresponsible equipment
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