Students from a university where there is no naval engineering, in a city far from the sea that is known as the capital of the mountain, and carrying out tests in the small lake of a popular park, developed a scale trimaran to participate in an international competition that will take place in a real sea, the Mediterranean, in Marseille (France). It is one of those undertakings that reflect the enthusiastic and determined temperament of the paisas.
These are 12 young people who are part of the Hydrometra research group, from the Faculty of Mines of the National University campus Medellin, who will compete with their vessel prototype in the 2026 version of HydroContest, the first international competition for students dedicated to nautical and maritime energy efficiency, a true laboratory of ideas where young engineers design, build and test prototypes aiming at a single objective: “to transport more, faster and consuming less energy.”
But the Colombian students Wesly Huertas, Joan Botero, Brayan Jaramillo, David Lebrun, Sara Avendano, Catalina Solano, Luis Otalvaro, Juan Sebastian Berrio, Kevin Restrepo, Sebastian Martinez, Andres Arboleda and Mateo Lopez travel with confidence. In 2017, a first Hydrometra team that participated in that year’s HydroContest won.
A long testing process
“These young people have discovered that we are at an engineering level as high as anywhere else in the world. Notice that in 2017 we won HydroContest, and at UNAL there is no naval engineering. So, that says a lot about our students and professionals,” said professor Fernando Jesus Guevara Carazas, general director of the research group, quoted by El Colombiano.
The group spent one year and five months building an unprecedented prototype: a trimaran (made up of one main hull and two secondary hulls) measuring 2.3 meters in length. But this was the result of a long process in which the members of the research group also designed monohulls, catamarans and other prototypes, the Antioquia newspaper reports.
After analyzing the performance of about eight vessel models, and considering that although their performance was not below expectations a more hydrodynamic prototype could be manufactured, the project that has already traveled to Paris and Marseille began to take shape. It was November 2024, and that is when the challenge of manufacturing feasibility began, even greater considering that the students had never made a model like this before.
When the trimaran prototype design was ready, they faced the tests in water. “Despite the fact that we carried out many laboratory checks and left everything ready, on the day of the test something happened: the vessel would not move, the steering system would freeze.
So, there were days when we could not even get the vessel running because we had a permit at the Parque Norte lake only until a certain time, and we did not have enough time,” civil engineer Joan Botero Lenis, leader of the fluid dynamics team in the project, recalled in El Colombiano.
After completing the tests and adjustments, the trimaran was ready and passed all water tests. The vessel has been waiting in Marseille for days for the team, which will travel to France next weekend to participate in the international competition between April 28 and 30, seeking to repeat the feat of 2017.”