Metal work has been completed for the first unit of our Multichine 41 SK built in aluminium
We are glad to inform that the metal work phase of our first Multichine 41 SK built in aluminium has been completed by Ilha Sul construções Náuticas boatyard ( http://www.ilhasulnauticas.com.br ), from Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The first aluminum MC 41 SK ready to start internal fit out
The work was completed in less than 3 full months of working time, if one
allows for the time in which work has been suspended due to the relocation of
the boatyard from its original location in Barra do Ribeiro to Porto Alegre. Yes, you read it right! The entire structure was disassembled and moved to Porto Alegre, and even so the metal work was completed in record time for one of our
metallic designs.
The frames assembled in the two locations
100% pre-cut by CNC for the metallic structure was the trick that allowed such
astonishing efficiency to be attained in the construction, not making any
concessions for quality.
First bottom plate goes up
This highly comfortable yacht with shallow draft should be sailing by the mid of this year.
Our client has been making regular trips to the boatyard and tells us that he is very glad
with his decision to invest in an aluminium hull and to be able to find a last
generation design that allowed his dream to go from paper ( computer ) to
reality in a time shorter than he thought possible.
Hull turn over, always a great emotion!
One big advantage
in aluminium construction is the ability to pass from metal work to internal
fit out immediately, without the need of sandblasting and painting, two very
expensive and time consuming tasks.
View from the
rear end of the swing keel box. You can see the division for the front cabin
and head.
The size of the Multichine
41 SK allows a family with kids to undertake long cruises or even to permanently
live aboard, being a compact and movable home.
This new
generation of swing keel monohull designs is opening a whole new world of
possibilities that before where exclusive of catamarans and other shallow draft
boats, and do so with great safety, allowing access to better shelters and
cyclone holes, freeing sailors from tide waits and other obstacles, all the
while giving them the inherent stability of monohulls.
The MC 41SK and other swing keel designs from our office can join this
catamaran, seen here in Gadji bay, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia.
If you would like
to read more about the Multichine 41 SK Click here.
Multichine 28 Access in the West Indies
Flávio Bezerra is the cruising sailor who went farthest with
a MC28 yet. For three consecutive years he has been roving among
the Caribbean Islands, doing eventual delivery trips to England of yachts
left unattended in the West Indies whose owners became acquainted with
him. Being a really nice guy, we from the office became close friends
of him during the construction of his boat. Even though he was already
a frequent visitor to our office (this was before we shifted our office
to Perth, Western Australia), it was when he was building his MC
28 that we became really acquainted with each other. We were also
building a boat for our family, the Bora-Bora 28 Oa-Oa,under the same shed in the installations of a yacht club in Rio
de Janeiro (Guanabara) Bay. So, receiving good news from
him is always great pleasure for us.
The last email we received from him, he seemed to be having the time
of his life, doing what so many of us would like to be doing. We are
particularly pleased with his e-mail for the references he makes about
the good steering control of his boat’s rudder, a factor we pay
special attention when designing cruising boats, and that only recently
is becoming recognized by many as outstanding.
Hi, friends from B & G Yacht Design. How is the family
doing?
The intended delivery from England to Brazil was canceled. What
a shame! The boat in question, a twenty-years-old Beneteau, had its
keel bolts badly corroded, the hatches leaking, the rudder quadrant
broken, the standing rigging in very bad conditions, and so on…The
owner of the boat asked me to do the British Royal Association
Yacht Master exam and for that matter I spent a whole month in England.
It was super. I had to fulfill all the requirements of the exam, like,
for instance, maneuvering a large boat without the assistance of the
auxiliary engine, using the sextant to obtain a fix, and all other matters
required to be a proficient yacht captain.
Falmouth is a very beautiful place. For sheer luck I found
a sunny September, quite atypical for the season, occurring only when
El Niño is active. The tide range reaches nine metres, and when
navigating in the channels, it was quite demanding having to deal with
fog and tidal current. The examining board wanted you to know everything,
nothing like 70% or 80% of guessing right to be qualified. You must
pass in all tests to obtain the license. I admit it was tough, but it
was rewarding! Despite my effort, the owner of the boat gave up the
trip.
Who knows if I was lucky? I would rather cross one thousand oceans
with my faithful Access than crossing the Atlantic one more time
in a boat like that. Now I understand why the delivery skippers friends
of mine use to complain when they make such deliveries.
Multichine 28 Access soon after arriving in
the Caribbean. Now Access was given a throughout face-lift
and is looking like new.
I have just arrived in Antigua from St. Maarten after a twenty-four
hours crossing, sailing against a 32knots wind, forty in the gusts,
in a three metres height wave pattern. However, good old Access never
disappointed me, and performed like a thoroughbred. The perfectly balanced
rudder affords great steadiness of course. Believe it or not, I still
didn’t acquire an auto-pilot or wind-vane, a few shock-cords sufficing
for self-steering.
The West Indies keep being paradise on earth. Pristine waters, gorgeous
beaches, steady trade winds for those who love sailing, out of this
world mega-yachts and people from all over the world. You find yacht-
chandlers to buy anything you need, and there is always an odd job for
a boat builder to replenish his kitty. The local music couldn’t
be more exciting, and those like me who love diving, I have no words
to describe how nice it is being here. In short, I can’t
imagine a better place to live aboard if you have a cruising sailboat.
You know so well, since you also stayed in the West Indies with your
boat.
To be absolutely perfect I’m only missing a Brazilian girlfriend,
since no women from other countries can compare to them in grace and
casualness. I’m sending my best wishes to this family that I had
the pleasure to live side by side during the whole construction of my
boat.
Merry Chrismas to you all.
Flávio
Flavio sails most of the time single-handed using only shock-cords
to assist him in steering the boat. He sailed from Rio de Janeiro to
the West Indies without engine or auto-pilot. This albacore must have
provided him a tasty lunch that day
Flávio is a regular contributor to our news section. His stories
are so spicy and he is so good-tempered that every so often we are asked
if there isn’t any news from him. His reports are a good incentive
for others who are building a MC28.
Sirius, the first Samoa 28 to be completed, is a home made boat built
by her owner, the Argentinean geologist Daniel D’Angelo. Being
an eloquent example of well-succeeded amateur construction, this sailboat
is demonstrating how fast and sea-worthy she can be.
For the first time Daniel ventured into the open sea, when taking
part in the 180 miles traditional offshore race from Buenos Aires to
Punta del Leste, in the neighbouring country Uruguay. The e-mail he
sent us tells the story of Sirius two last races:
As I had informed you beforehand, I entered with Sirius in the
“River Plate one hundred miles race” having two friends
as crewmembers. The start was under a heavy storm with 32 knots winds and
it was raining cats and dogs…bliss for Sirius, that, in spite
of a lousy start, soon after the gun-fire, began to accelerate like
a bat out of hell, and before we could ever dream, we were overtaking
boats of the class above ours, which have left twenty minutes ahead.
The two first legs were sailed close-hauled, when we managed to
be in third place in the race, but after rounding the windward mark,
already in Uruguayan waters, the wind shifted to a running-reach and
weakened, what for our small 7/8 gennaker wasn’t match for other
boats with huge top-mast symmetrical spinnakers. We finished sixth overall,
while more than half the fleet did not finish because of the heavy weather,
including a sunken boat in this list.
Sirius sailing in the River Plate with her brand-new
gennaker
Arriving in Buenos Aires the wind vanished, leaving Sirius lurching
about for three long hours before crossing the finish line… very
bad luck for us!!!
A fortnight after, with the assistance of one of the crewmembers of
the previous race, we entered the Buenos Aires to Punta del Leste Race.
Sirius salt water baptism was finally going to happen! Another 180 miles,
this time in the open sea, should be added to her insipient career ship’s
log. For me this was a maiden experience of sailing double-handed offshore
for two nights in a row… a great leap for this landlubber amateur
constructor!!!
The forecast was of light winds, and, as usual, we made a horrible
start, being the last boat to cross the line. The start was scheduled
for December 4, at 6 pm and in half an hour the wind picked strength
up to twenty knots, coming from east, better saying, on the nose. Then
was when Sirius showed her merits. When the prevailing short waves of
the River Plate began to get steeper, the punishment on the whole fleet
was merciless. Many yachts began to throw the towel, while others opted
for the Uruguayan tack in search of some shelter from the steep seas.
We stayed on the Argentinean side of the river, which was to be the
best choice, in spite of the waves being twice as high. Our speed close-hauled
was six knots, jumping to seven knots when we put a reef in the main.
The whole night was a heavy beat, with Sirius not taking into account
the bad weather, while I and my mate endured all that punishment without
complaint, even though unable to sleep and practically not eating anything.
Saturday at noon Montevideo was athwart, when a lull left us
floating in the same spot for two and a half hours. This was when the
bigger boats with larger sail areas and weighing less than Sirius started
catching us. We took the opportunity to have a bite to eat and get some
rest.
Then it began to blow a very cold wind from the south. We decided to
keep a reef in the mainsail just in case the wind reached gale force
during the night. On those conditions Sirius was running at a speed
of six knots. Since we were already entering open sea, the wave pattern
changed radically, with more distance between waves, and only very seldom
we were hit by a breaking crest. It was the first time I could observe
the phosphorescence of the water, the famous noctilucas!...Show!!!
Sunday five o’clock a.m., the sixth of December we crossed the
finish line, very glad with Sirius performance, tired to death and starving.
What an experience! Sailing in the open sea is another world.
We obtained an eightieth place in corrected time in a class of fifteen
and fifteenth in the fleet of fifty seven participants.
When leaving the boat docked in Punta del Leste Marina, we took some
pictures. We couldn’t stop laughing when comparing the two towels
used in our farewell bath we put to dry with pegs on the life-lines
with all sorts of stuffs put to dry on the other boats, like sleeping
bags, sweaters, underwear clothes and so on, left drying in the morning
sun.
Samoa 28 Sirius in Punta del Leste
Tomorrow I’ll go out for a day-sail with my wife
Carina and my daughter Florencia.
Next Friday my crewmember will make a delivery trip back to our home-port.
The girls will return by ferry.
At any rate, these last twenty days Sirius sailed more miles than
in all her previous life.
Cheers
Daniel
When a new year approaches and we make the account of all the work
done along these last twelve months, instead of remembering the small
details that compounded this vanishing year, we rather feel like dedicating
some space to maritime poetry as season’s greetings to our friends
and clients, so they will find something more abstract than the things
we routinely publish in our site. It is also becoming tradition that
we show twelve photos of boats built by clients of ours, a sort of tribute
to their accomplishments.
This time we chose two poems. The first, the classic poem that the
father of Roberto Barros’ wife, Eileen, the late British
Merchant Navy officer Thomas Thorp, used declaiming to her before sleeping
when she was a kid.
The other is composed by a friend of ours engineer Luis Manuel Pinho,
Jerry Hickson, who wrote a touching poetry about the outstanding feat
achieved by their common friend, Jeff Hartjoy, rounding Cape Horn single-handed,
in an epic-style poem called “Sailor’s Run”.
We wish you, our friends and builders, merry Christmas, happy New Year
and that the nautical side of your lives becomes a source of joy and
fulfillment.
Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer by,
And the wheel’s kick and the winds song and the white sails shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the sea again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s
like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield
Around the Horn Alone in "Sailors Run"
Jeff sailed around Cape Horn alone! His story should be told
By people everywhere who love adventures big and bold.
There still are sailors brave enough to dare the toughest test.
Here's how another joined the ranks of those we call "The Best."
The "Sailors Run" is a Baba ketch, a sturdy cruising boat
Which Jeff and Debbie sailed for years - their lives a dream afloat.
He started living one more dream, to round the greatest Cape,
On December the eleventh of two thousand and eight.
He dropped his Callao, Peru lines with happy heart, all smiles,
Dodged hundreds of small fishing boats the first 200 miles,
Took only twenty-minute naps, re-stowed fresh food and cans,
Close-hauled on port tack smoothly sailed southwest away from land.
Away from boats he felt more safe, two hours he dared to sleep
While wind vane held the boat on course and radar watch did keep.
The SSB gave weather-fax, GRIB files and emails too.
Rough weather was a main concern. What would be coming through?
On days with light and fluky winds he readied for hard blows.
He battened down the hatches, stowed the Bimini below.
A fickle wind at 2am fouled genoa and sheets -
The mess was dangerous and dark - with care he made things neat.
The mainsail got a second reef in day ten's stronger squalls.
The furling line had to be fixed, so to the bow he crawled.
With tether helping hold him on for three cold plunging hours
In ten-foot waves he did the job, then coffee and hot shower.
Reports were sent every three days by Sailmail to his friends.
He rationed beers to one-a-day and hoped they'd last 'till end.
A high came through with wind so light he motored for a while.
On day 15 from boat to Horn was sixteen hundred miles.
On Christmas Day he was alone, a long ways out at sea,
But found the present Debbie hid - a good music CD..
The wind gods had a present too - the wind switched to southwest.
He tacked to aim straight at the Horn, put harness on his chest.
The roaring forties greeted him with winds that were so light
That sailing with a spinnaker seemed perfectly all right.
Great Albatross and fog and cold were now the daily norm.
He thought about old Indian tricks to keep both dry and warm.
The weather called for reefs again at 45 degrees
And "Sailors Run" began to buck in crazy confused seas.
So cold he wore two pairs of socks, wool sweaters and long-johns,
And looked for ice and penguins too, his motto was "Hold On!"
Day 22 was really rough. He took down all the main
In 45 knot winds which broke an eye off the wind vane.
With autopilot steering now in weather named "whoop ass"
He thought about the Vendee Globe whose boats would soon go past.
In 20-foot tall haystack seas the 30 knot winds wailed.
He kept a crashing six knot pace with just a reefed staysail.
A forecast storm just missed the boat, relieving some concern..
He jury-rigged the wind vane hanging head-first o'er the stern.
At 51 degrees there's light for 20 hours per day,
"Thank God" the darkness was not more for those who sailed
this way.
The "Furious Fifties" must be fought for 700 miles.
Day 25 "the sailing's great!" Perhaps Jeff cracked a smile?
The squalls got worse, to 50 knots, it was a nasty ride,
Big waves broke often on the boat, some water got inside.
Jeff's GPS tore from its mount - continuing to work!
But he was thrown onto the stove and "Ow!" his hand was hurt!
Now at the Horn there is a gale 300 days per year.
Expect strong winds and giant waves or stay away from here!
A racing boat broke off its keel! Jeff was too far away.
Another boat turned from the race, and rescue went okay.
Day 28 the wind vane broke, and staysail shackle too.
A little genny was unfurled, but (gybing) it ripped through.
Bare poles propelled the battered boat while tired Jeff hung on.
A furious gale of 50 knots kept howling 'till the dawn.
It stopped at last, and for two days light winds blew many ways.
The sails were changed to match the winds quite often in those days.
The engine wiring caught on fire, but that was quickly killed.
Jeff reached Cape Horn 1/9/09, his wildest dream fulfilled.
Since Shouten and LeMaire passed by four hundred years ago
Naming this cape for their home town, its legends only grow.
Big clipper ships with clouds of sail dashed past in olden days,
But very few alone in yachts have dared to sail this way.
His celebration was quite short, there still was far to go,
But Jeff's emotions must have been the highest he could know.
He turned to north a happy man, though bruised and cold and battered.
There was no time to rest for he must fix some things which mattered.
Up mizzen, wind-gen blades he broke. It worked when all did match.
Genoa taken off, he made a triple-layer patch.
A finger badly jammed in gybe was nearly cut in two.
Peroxide and a bandage helped, but it was painful too.
Genoa back on furler, slow and tough work in a breeze.
Then up the mainmast, swinging 'round, a halyard he retrieved.
This was a rugged workout with great danger to the man
But now his boat was ready for the sea's next stern demands.
He passed east of the Falklands but fog hid them from his view.
He fished and caught an albatross not wanted in his stew.
Too rough for diesel heating, he was cold and tossed around,
And thankful to Bob Perry who made Baba boats so sound.
For most of two days 50 knots of wind made him heave to.
A big wave broke the wind vane mount, so for this trip 'twas through.
When winds were less the sails went up to bash away the miles.
It was a beat, foul current too, without a lot of smiles.
While emails came full of "Congrats!" to him still far from
land,
He thanked his mentor Clarence Plotts - great sailor, honest man.
He now was nearly out of beer - just wanted to arrive -
But strong headwinds for three long days left him with bleary eyes.
Day 45 the wind just quit. The motor ran, then seized!
The estuary must be sailed. For that he needed breeze.
In the Rio de la Plata the boat's CQR was dropped.
The anchorage was lousy but the wind had truly stopped.
He fell into exhausted sleep. Six hours he snoozed away,
But woke to find strong rising wind - he must get underway!
No motor meant he couldn't raise the anchor and its chain.
He slipped them (buoyed) with feeble hope of seeing them again.
Depth sounder dead, he used lead-line to dodge shoals in the dark.
Dredged channels often were unlit - this sailing was no lark!
Big ships came down the channel fast, and forced him to the side
In darkest night with thirty knots - a wild and scary ride!
Club Argentino in mid-night: Oh No! They'd closed the gate!
He dropped a Danforth, nylon rode, and settled down to wait
Until the launch came out to tow and brought his boat inside
Where "Sailors Run" with mooring lines at last was safely
tied.
He broke his hand on that last night. It slowly healed okay.
The ruined engine was replaced, and Debbie came to stay!
They found the anchor and the chain which had been slipped in haste
And "Sailors Run" once more resumed its normal cruising pace.
They dream of crossing new seas now, this boat and tested crew.
Beyond the blue horizon they will make more dreams come true.
When sailors tell romantic tales of roaming far from home,
Remember Jeff and "Sailors Run" - around Cape Horn alone
Jerry Hickson
JANUARY – Pantanal 25 - Maik Biela is a German who
lives in Santiago de Chile, where he recently began a custom boatbuilding
business. His first venture in this new career was the construction
of a Pantanal 25, which he is close to completing. This boat is intended
to be his introduction card in this new activity. However, the local
community is already giving him credit for what he is accomplishing,
and a second unit has already been ordered to him. We wish Maik lots
of good luck in his new enterprise.
FEBRUARY – Multichine 28 - Dave Cross is building
this MC28 in Washington State, USA, with the intention of participating
in club-racing in the Puget Sound area. His construction is very ‘clean’
with no unnecessary weight being added to the boat, which will help
him to obtain better placements in future competitions. On his request
we produced a taller rig for the MC28 stock plan, so he will
have a larger sail area to cope with the light wind conditions prevailing
in the sound.
MARCH – Samoa 34 Zait – This Samoa 34
is already sailing and is stationed in Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club,
being reason for great pride, not only from the part of her owner, Daniel
Sequerra, but also from her builder, Flavio Rodrigues, director of Flab
Boatyard. In the photo Flavio is giving the last touches in glaze on
the lettering at Zait’s topside.
APRIL – Multichine 26C – This sailboat isbeing
constructed in Istanbul, Turkey, by the amateur builder Ömer Kirkal,
with the assistance of his wife. The boat is nearly finished and is
becoming a work of art. The Kirkal family soon will be launching their
boat and we will be delighted to publish the month’s cover story
about this inauguration. We wish them very good luck in 2010 with their
new cruising sailboat.
MAY – Multichine 34/36 Serenata – This powerful
cruising sailboat belongs to the commercial pilot Marcelo Brasil. This
photo was taken in the South Atlantic when Serenata was
sailing to Fernando de Noronha, an ocean island three-hundred miles
offshore the Brazilian coast. How many wouldn’t like to be there:
a perfect breeze, a sailboat with pleasant lines taking you and your
loved one to a paradisiacal island.
JUNE – Southern Voyager 38 Plaisirr - This metallic
trawler was built by her owner, the Frenchman Philippe Lamoure. He wanted
a displacement boat with long range of operation, capable of taking
him to far places with plenty of comfort for his family and guests.
Philippe is in his first season with his cruising little ship and is
enjoying a lot the new experience.
JULY - Samoa 34 Libertad – This boat was
built by Franzen Boatyard from Curitiba, State of Parana, South Brazil.
Before being delivered to her owner, Libertad was the
dwelling of this stowaway squirrel that couldn’t resist to the
sublime scent of cedar wood that emanated from the building grid. It
is a shame the little chap refused to stay aboard when the boat was
launched, preferring to wait for the next boat to be built in the same
shed.
AUGUST – Kiribati 36 Green Nomad – Luis Manuel
Pinho and his wife Marli Werner (the one seated at portside) are the
owners of this aluminium swing-keel cruising sailboat, the first to
be built from the Kiribati 36 recently introduced stock plan.
This photo shows her with a couple and their boy during one of the first
times they received guests for dinner. Marli and Luis are living aboard
while building the interior of Green Nomad at Porto Alegre,
Brazil. When the construction is finished they intend to depart bound
for Australia, the country they have citizenship, and beyond, probably
the innumerous paradises to be found in the South Pacific. Luis Manuel,
a metallurgic engineer, is part of our yacht design team, having participated
intensely in the development of the Kiribati 36 design.
SEPTEMBER – Samoa 34 Luthier – Dorival Gimenes,
together with his wife Catarina, built this Samoa 34 in his home
garden at the city of Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil. The
boat is so well built that the name given to her fits as a glove.
Soon after Luthier was launched the couple shifted residence,
changing their comfortable country house with a large garden and swimming
pool for the compact quarters of Luthier’s interior.
Since roots don’t grow in fin-keels, a few months after the inauguration
they left their pier in the marina where they were stationed, at Paraty,
State of Rio de Janeiro, and went sailing bound for the northeast of
Brazil. In September 2009 they took part in the Recife to Fernando de
Noronha Regatta, an offshore 300 miles competition, winning the race
in her class.
They were effusively complimented by the participants in the race for
the excellent performance of their boat, which, in spite of her professional
looks, is just an amateur construction.
OCTOBER – Polar 65 Fraternidade – Aleixo
Belov is an Ukrainian who chose to live in Bahia, Brazil, so he would
have a slower pace of life while maintaining a high standard of living.
After completing three round the world trips singlehanded aboard a
forty-foot sailboat, he came to our office, when he ordered us this
new stock plan.
Being a skilled engineer, Aleixo built himself his Fraternidade
(means fraternity in Portuguese) with the intention of attempting
a fourth circumnavigation, this time in company of young scientists,
film-makers and divers. His Ukrainian blood, in spite of the many years
lived in the tropics, compels him to look for the high latitudes and
the most challenging surroundings in the planet, for this matter being
Frarernidade provided with a retractable swing-keel capable
of providing shelter for the boat in shallow waters inaccessible to
larger ice-bergs, not mentioning the innumerous other places that she
will be able to navigate thanks to her capacity of reducing draught.
Fraternidade was already submitted to rigid sea trials
and is ready to come into play.
The crew was already chosen and departure is imminent. The ports of
call will be many, since the trip has no tight schedules. Considering
her head-turning expedition-boat style, we are quite confident that
the stories of Fraternidade future adventures will be
flying around, and soon will be cover-stories in many specialized magazines,
not mentioning the exhibition of documentaries that are intended to
be produced along the way.
NOVEMBER - Pantanal 25 Dark Ice - Our most popular design
during this last year was unquestionably the Pantanal 25. One
of the reasons for so much fuss about this class was the outstanding
performance of Dark Ice in most races she took part during
the 2009 State of Sao Paulo racing season. Her owner, Jorge Intaschi,
is a sailor from Sao Paulo who fell in love with the Pantanal 25
design, having decided to build a boat of the class for him and
later produce the model commercially.
No sooner said than done. He made a joint venture with Coopermarine,
a local boat factory with large experience in tooling, and now, after
producing first class moulds for series production, they are prepared
to build as many boats as they sell.
Since the class is quickly spreading internationally, with boats being
built in five continents, soon it will be easy to find boats of this
class in the most different places.
DECEMBER – Custom design Maitairoa – This
thirty-foot double-ender is an authentic off-the-road of the seas. Built
by Roberto Barros, the founder of B & G Yacht Design at his country
house in Itaipava, a locality placed in the hills north of Rio de Janeiro,
about one thousand metres above sea level, Maitairoa is
a custom design specified for fibreglass single skin construction, and
was entirely tailor-made to his requirements.
When the building was concluded, Roberto Barros, together with his
family and friends carried out dauntless adventures aboard this veritable
battleship, sailing by way of the roaring forties to South Africa and
later to sub-Antarctic regions, where they suffered a serious mishap,
when the boat went aground in a deserted beach in the Falklands/Malvinas.
These voyages were related in a classic book of nautical literature,
“The Fantastic Adventures of Maitairoa”, written by Roberto
Barros together with his friend and crew member, Roberto Allan Fuchs.
During the early nineties Maitairoa was sold to
a great friend of Roberto Barros, the Argentinean physicist Sandra Sautu,
who, together with her French husband, Axel, sailed from Rio to the
Caribbean, Azores, Gibraltar, ending up in Trieste, Northern Italy.
In their way, when gunk holing along the Dalmatian Islands, they conceived
Calypso, (the one at the portside settee), being her name a tribute
to the Odyssey heroin.
After a while in Trieste, they sailed to Antibes, French Riviera, where
the boat is presently stationed. Now that the second son is growing
up, as soon as work allows them, they will leave for other adventures.
Curruira 42, a trawler with style and
comfort
Since its introduction the Curruira 42 stock
plan has deserved small attention from our part in promoting it in our
site. You would only find it when browsing our list of stock plans in
the trawlers and motor yachts section. This treatment was unfair with
this outstanding mid-sized trawler which has been reason of curiosity
by those who found her hidden in a secondary home-page.
It is not easy for us promoting with equal footing our more than fifty
stock plans, so we need to do it one each time. We use to high-light
a design when the first boat of the class is nearing completion, and
this is exactly the case now with the Curruira 42.
The first unit is in its last stages of construction at FLAB Boatyard,
from Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil, www.flab.com.br,
and now we believe to be the right moment to turn the spotlights towards
this design. Let’s tell something about the story of this relatively
new project:
Since a long time we had the intention of designing a motor yacht of
affordable cost, remotely resembling a small tramp ship of classic lines,
much in the same style of Humphrey Bogart’s old Hollywood films.
When we received an enquiry about a boat like that, instead of informing
that we had only the intention of producing a design with these characteristics,
we didn’t hesitate in offering the Curruira 42 to
this potential client (curruira is the name of lovely South American
little bird) as a stock plan, never minding to still having to develop
the whole design from scratch.
We have no reasons to regret our decision, since this project became
an important achievement in our career and have been very well received
by the cruising community.
We wished offering a 42 foot motor yacht of traditional lines which construction
would be at the reach of the amateur builder, while possessing the looks
and finishing standard to rival with other sophisticated trawlers available
on the market. Our aim was to produce a long range operating trawler with
enough comfort for a family to live aboard for prolonged stretches
Fantasy and reality are coming together. Rendered figure: www.ideebr.com.
Our first client, Nico Araujo, is a medical doctor who lives in one
of the most beautiful regions of the Brazilian shoreline, the coast
of the state of Bahia, more precisely, Camamu Bay, a lush and green
tropical paradise that seems not to be totally discovered by jet-setters
yet. Nico intends to live aboard and do some social practicing, assisting
the less favoured communities of fishermen around the bay offering them
non-remunerated health support. He also intends to cruise with his little
ship, perhaps bound for the Caribbean.
Other builders followed Nico’s path and now we have other clients
in South America and Europe, even though the promotion of the design
had been practically nonexistent.
The interior has two variations of layout to contemplate larger
or smaller families. This is the three cabins, two heads version. Rendered
image: www.ideebr.com
Many retired couples have preference for a stateroom of larger
proportions. Rendered figure: www.ideebr.com.
The Curruira 42 was designed to be built in plywood
over wooden frames and sheathed on the outside by a thick layer of fiberglass.
This building method is very simple, and even though it requires more
labor to be accomplished than laminating inside a female mould, it is
more recommended for the amateur, or the non-specialized carpenter,
not mentioning it isn’t required to build an expensive female
mould. Besides, it provides a light boat for its strength, immensely
durable, possessing the best virtues of fiberglass construction and
the warmth of a wooden interior. It is in the specifications that the
whole interior surface be impregnated with two coats of epoxy resin.
Sheis also specified for steel construction. Building
in steel is something within the reach of many persons who are more
familiar with metallic construction than with wood-work. Besides, steel
is a material easily available anywhere and the equipment to process
it is common place to be found in any country. For these people with
inclination to deal with metallic work we specified hull and superstructure
to be built with this raw material
We opted for a displacement hull with long cruising range (about two
thousand miles) proportioning great savings in engine cost and fuel
consumption. With one or two engines options and allowing up to two
125Hp inboard engines installation, the Curruira 42
reaches 10 knots at full speed.
Hybrid propulsion with electric drive mode coupled to the explosion
engine is also a possibility. Installing the environment friendly hybrid
solution is a break-trough in boat propulsion technology. Its adoption
brings several advantages, like dispensing another generator for other
on board equipments, considering that the electric motor generates electricity
when being propelled by the diesel engine, besides ensuring silent,
pollution-free, propulsion at low speed when employing the electric
motor. The plans for hybrid installation are optional and can be customized
for the engine chosen. The adaptation, however, is quite simple and
straightforward and there is sufficient space at the engine room for
its installation.
We designed the Samoa 34, initially Samoa 33, during the nineties,
when our office still operated in Rio de Janeiro Downtown, years before
moving the office to Perth, Western Australia. Our champions of
sale at that time were the Samoa 29, now discontinued, and the MC28,
two easy to build and relatively cheap sailboats, both at the reach
of an amateur builder and equally fit for living aboard, or to accomplish
the most ambitious offshore voyaging plan, even a round the world trip,
if wanted.
This decision had already been taken by two Samoa 29 owners who sailed
round the globe in flawless trips reported in our news a few years ago.
A reference to these two trips is made in our Hall of Fame
list: Samoa 29 Jornal and Samoa 29 Hypocampus.
The MC28 Class, being younger, hasn’t accomplishments of same
footing yet, being Access the farthest going
representative of the model, having her owner and amateur builder, Flavio
Bezerra, sailed single-handed from Rio de Janeiro to the West Indies,
where he stayed for two years and now is planning crossing the Panama
Canal and travelling around the Pacific.
Arandu and Soneca,(means nap in Portuguese),two Samoas 34 sharing the same anchorage.
The design contemplates two cabin trunk styles as shown above
In spite of the success of these two designs, our team was interested
in developing a new project, also within the reach of the amateur, but
turned towards another profile of yachtsman, one with a bit more resources
and wishing something larger with more room to live aboard. It is understandable
that for each purse there is an optimum size of boat. Actually, when
designing the Samoa 34 we had the north hemisphere community in mind,
since Americans and Europeans who venture offshore are more acquainted
with yachts from thirty-four foot up. Obviously we were conscious about
the little chance of somebody picking a design for later considering
the boat too small for his needs.
At the very beginning our prevision was correct. The first person
to acquire the new plan was a young man from the State of Arizona who
was wiling to sail the Pacific. He liked the design flush deck which
allowed him to lash his surfboard to the life-line stanchions without
obstructing the traffic forward. However, we have been surprised with
the interest for the model in South America, where we had smaller hopes
of success. In a very short time after the introduction of the plans
we were being invited for a sail aboard Camino,
the first boat of the class (then Samoa 33) to be launched. Perhaps
for the good impression this boat raised among the sailing community,
the class never stopped growing locally.
Arandu’s cockpit
shimmered by a paraffin lamp. A good occasion for a happy hour
Only recently we began to find supporters for the class in the north
countries market we had envisaged initially, while heaps of Samoas 34
were being built in most parts of Brazil, from the Amazon forest to
the cold climate southern states of the country.
We reckon the initial small interest for the design was due to lack
of knowledge about the project, while our smaller models which we believed
had less chances of sales overseas, the MC28 and the Samoa 28, the boat
that substituted the Samoa 29, were surprisingly very well accepted
by cruising sailors in northern countries. However as soon as the Samoa
34 became better known abroad, the situation began to change, and now
we have quite a few Samoas34 being built overseas.
One of the most recent articles published in our news referred exactly
to the Samoa 34 class: the report of Luthier, the
Samoa 34 that won the three-hundred miles Recife to Fernando de Noronha
offshore race, perhaps the most important event in the South Atlantic,
being the first to cross the line in its class.
Soon after publishing this article, however, we received an e-mail
from the owner of another Samoa 34 which had been launched a few weeks
before, belonging to the aeronautical engineer Geraldo Macedo, from
Sao Jose dos Campos, State of Sao Paulo. The fact that Geraldo is an
engineer and an air force fighter pilot gives him credential for rating
the merits of the design, considering sailboats having some affinities
with aeronautical technologies.
The Samoa 34 saloon is very cozy. The prolonged version
of the cabin trunk enhances the sensation of spaciousness and improves
headroom forward.
There are two versions for the cabin’s trunk: the original all
windowed pilot-house style small cabin abaft the mast with a huge flush-deck
forward and the prolonged trunk reaching the fore compartment, which
is Arandu’s option.
Next is Geraldo’s e-mail:
Arandu made her maiden cruise during the first
days of September. On this occasion she met Soneca, another
Samoa 34, when staying in Sitio Forte Cove and later visited various
other havens in Ilha Grande Bay.
The Belgian guest considered the comfort of
Arandu’s galley comparable to his forty-one footer.
We had aboard with us a Belgian yachtsman who owns a Dufour 41 in his
country.
He praised the Samoa 34 design and construction while assisting us to
tune the rigging and sails. Besides, he presented us with cordon bleu
meals typical of French/Belgian culinary skills.
He found Arandu’s performanceoutstanding,
considering she is such a strong cruising boat. With brand new racing
oriented set of sails her performance close-hauled was comparable to
that of an offshore racer. He also considered the steering control of
the rudder stunning, with instant response to helmsman’s demand;
something aeronautical engineers know how to appreciate. When under
engine the boat practically pivots in its axis, bliss on those
tight marinas, like Pirata’s Mall in Angra dos Reis.
Arandu anchored in
Ilha Grande during the first cruise after being launched.
We are stationed at Refugio das Caravelas Marina, in Paraty, and you
will be always very welcome aboard if you happen to rove in that direction.
I spend quite a few days weekly there, going back to my town, São
José dos Campos, at least once a week, since I didn’t manage
to retire and my family isn’t totally adapted to living aboard
yet.
Geraldo’s daughter seems to be enjoying the stay on her
father’s new yacht.
The first gallery of photos shows Arandu after
having the upholstery installed and the sails stored aboard. Saco da
Ribeira Bay, State of Sao Paulo
The reason for so many builders, amateurs and professionals
alike, being able to construct such good examples of boats of the class
must reside in the simplicity and linearity of its building method.
We discovered during our long career of designing boats for one-off
construction that the path to success is directly related to the friendliness
of the initial phases of the construction, which shouldn’t be
too demanding not to let the work become irksome. There is not even
one builder that feels ill at easy in laminating twelve pairs of cold
moulded frames, and later laying strips over them to plank the hull.
Once we specify making rings at each station, consisting of frames,
superstructure beams and plywood transverse furniture walls, when the
hull is sheathed and turned over, the rest of the construction is too
linear to represent any real difficulty.
Our clients are unaware of this, and believe all boats designed to be
built by amateurs or custom boatyards are equally simple to being built.
However, statistically, the number of Samoas 34 completed surpass
by far the average number of amateur builders employing other methods
who manage to finish their boats.
To award the efforts of our clients we at B & G Yacht Design like
to report their stories whenever they send us good photos of their
construction. Since there are many being constructed presently, you
may expect to find other articles about the class in the near future.
Boats built in strip-planking over cold moulded frames are immensely
durable, and structurally speaking, veritable battleships. Our clients
are so pleased with the result of their constructions that it hasn’t
been uncommon that as soon their boats are launched they shift aboard
to live with their families. These happy owners are our most important
publicity.
The simplicity and linearity of the construction method generated an
odd consequence: many of our builders construct their boats all by themselves,
almost unassisted, sometimes with the help of their wives. Some of our
clients are retired, some others are farmers living in remote regions,
but all of them have a resolute determination to finish their boats,
in many cases being this achievement the main goal in their lives. This
profile of cruising people is so fascinating to us that we are listing
below a few examples:
Rodrigo Ferher is a physicist from Sao Paulo, Brazil. His Samoa
34 Tanpopo was built by Flab Boatyards, at Campinas, State
of São Paulo, www.flab.com.br,
a highly recommended boat builder. His boat is already sailing since
a few years and he exchanged his activity as a scientist for that of
a charter skipper. If you are interested in being acquainted with the
Samoa 34 design and would like to charter Tanpopo, his site is: http://tanpopo.com.br.
Rodrigo speaks fluent English. The region where he runs his charter business is one of the
most beautiful cruising grounds in the world and is highly recommended
being visited. The level of woodwork of his boat is one of the best
in the class.
Arutana Corberio is a retired judge at the high court in Belo
Horizonte, the capital city of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
After retirement he substituted his highly intellectual activity for
the handwork of building his dreamed sailboat.
This Samoa 34 is being built by the retired lawyer João
Scuro, and his wife, Maria, all by themselves, at the city of Joinville,
State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. They are applying two pairs of strips
daily and intend to finish their boat sometime in 2010. The quality
of their work is superb
Daniel Sequerra and his wife Diana always dreamed with having
a wooden boat. Daniel’s father had owned a classic Sparkman Stephens
yacht, the pride of the family, and when Daniel learned about the Samoa
34 design, he decided that the time had come to make his family dream
come true. Now Zait is already sailing and is the family’s
new pride. Zait, like Tanpopo, is a Flab Boatyard
construction.
Mauricio and Marcia Iasi are young doctors who live a very
demanding life as surgeons in a huge hospital at the city of Sao Paulo,
Brazil. Building the Samoa 34 is their day-off therapy to counter-balance
their stressing professional career. They intend to travel overseas
with their Samoa 34 as soon as they finish building her
Libertad is a Samoa 34 built by Franzen Boatyard, www.estaleirofranzen.com.br
from Curitiba, the capital of the State of Parana, Brazil. This
boat is already sailing since a long time and her owner is absolutely
delighted with her performance and interior comfort. Zilmar Franzen
is referred in the list of boatyards that work with our designs and
is a good option for those that would like to have a Samoa 34 but don’t
have the possibility to build it.
Luthier is a Samoa 34 entirely built
by their owners, the electronic engineer Dorival Gimenes and his wife
Catarina in their home garden at Campinas, a town in the State of São
Paulo. We already published two stories about this amateur construction
in our news: “Luthier, the wind calls the tune”,
and more recently, still one of the top stories in our site front-page:
“Samoa 34 Luthier wins offshore race”.
For those who are interested in the Multichine 41 SK design, a blue
water cruising yacht of superb performance and seaworthiness, the great
news are that B & G Yacht Design ( Roberto Barros Yacht Design )
now offers a complete set of cutting files that will allow a builder
to pre-cut nearly 100% of the aluminium parts.
The cutting files cover all areas of the metal work such as keel, keel
bearing, rudder as well as all of the framing, internal structure, tanks,
hull, deck, cabin and cockpit plating.
The first hull being built from the complete set of cutting
files, Bepaluhê, from our friend and customer Paulo Ayrosa, is
already well advanced as seen above in Ilha Sul Construções
Náuticas boatyard, from Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The level of accuracy, quality and productivity that can be achieved
with a pre-cut kit is hard to beat when compared with conventional construction
methods.
All structure has been modelled in 3D
The cutting files are available for aluminium construction and include
391 parts of varied sizes, from a few millimetres to 3.5 metres.
Swing Keel structure
With the set of cutting files a boatyard can have the framing ready
and aligned in less than a couple of weeks, ready for plating, and the
complete hull can be completed in a record breaking time frame.
All frames have alignment holes, making it easy to assemble
the structure and level it.
Typical detail of a frame showing the alignment hole to the
left and a positive, no slip, positioning division between parts.
Now this design can be even more attractive to professional builders
as well as to amateurs that enjoy tackling a good challenge.
This design is well suited to be the voyaging home for a couple and
kids, with enough accommodation and load carrying capabilities for long
periods at sea or in remote locations.
Paulo and Beth visit their future voyaging home
The cutting files for the Multichine 41 SK and also for the fixed keel
version, Multichine 41, can be ordered in 3 separate parts, depending
on need and construction phase. It is divided in:
Kit 1 - Frames, hull plating and internal structure, including tankage
Kit 2 – Deck, cabin and cockpit plating
Kit 3 – Swing Keel, keel bearing, rudder, skeg and propeller skeg.
Kit 1 costs AUD 1600 ( One Thousand Six Hundred Australian Dollars
), kit 2 AUD 1100 ( One Thousand OneHundred Australian Dollars ) and
kit 3 AUD 850 ( Eight Hundred and Fifty Australian Dollars ).
Click
here to know more about the Multichine 41 SK design.
Samoa 34 Luthier wins offshore race
We received an e-mail from Dorival Gimenes, an amateur who built
the Samoa 34 Luthier in the backyard of his house in Campinas,
São Paulo, Brazil, almost unassisted. Just after the boat
was completed and launched he changed his address for the boat and went
to live aboard with his wife Catarina. The couple and the boat
are in their maiden cruising voyage up the Brazilian coast. They planned
a trip to the northeast of Brazil with the intention of participating
in the 2009 Recife to Fernando de Noronha (REFENO) Regatta. The
e-mail tells some details of this story:
Dear friends designers of the Samoa 34. Luthier is a really
fast cruising sailboat and you can be proud of having designed her.
Since December 2008 when the boat was launched she has been giving
us lots of happiness and good results. We won the REFENO 2009
in our class, Open B, and we have been calling at many wonderful and
worth visiting places in the Brazilian coast. We have published
our sailing experiences in our blog at the website www.veleiro.ner
(blog.veleiro.net) administered by the captain of the yacht Yahgan,
a Cape Horn 35, built more than 15 yeas ago, a boat which sails smoothly,
looking as new as Luthier. These two boats are proof that
their building method, strip planking, is very strong and appropriate
for amateur construction. However, it is not only that; during
our trip we met a large number of MCs made in steel, home built Samoas
29 , plywood/epoxy MCs28, series produced Aladins, etc. We encountered
a very well built MC28, made by her owner, a deep water diving master
from Vitória, state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. We also
met many yachts from your office built by professional boatyards.
Getting ready for the REFENO 2009 start flag.
At each place we go Luthier attracts attention. Whenever we
say we built her, people look at the hull hardly believing it, and usually
come the same questions: is she really wooden? And then we go
again, showing the boat, the pictures of the construction, and they
look at everything with perplexity. Then they start asking about how
long it took for the construction, costs, difficulties, and so on, and
finally, if my wife agrees in having to live aboard.
Luthier sailing close-hauled
For the duration of the construction, costs and difficulties, I have
some answers, and I suggest them to look at your website and others
as reference. About my wife, I say that she helped in the construction
and that she loves our baby, as she calls Luthier.
People say boats have soul, and I believe in that. Luthier is
restless, doesn’t like to stay lashed to a pier, preferring moorings,
or to be anchored, but what she likes most is to be sailing.
Cruising with Luthier is very comfortable. Our average
speed is about 6 knots, and depending on the sea state and weather
conditions, we can sail easily at seven knots without stressing the
equipment. With sails properly trimmed the rudder is so light
that the autopilot requires very little energy to steer the boat.
Many of the cruising people we met said that it is a typical characteristic
of yours designs.
Even being home for Dorival and Catarina, Luthier
is very fast for a 34 foot cruising boat.
To build a boat and go away cruising is a worthy experience. Even if
only for short-lasting trips, or living aboard on weekends, it is very
rewarding, but it requires dedication, planning, controlling anxiety,
and to accept the fact that the yacht design office keeps its working
schedule and is continuously introducing new designs and updates that
will tempt us to change our minds for another design, as happened to
me when you introduced the new version of the Cape Horn 35.
Sticking to the original plan paid off. To finish the constructions
is an indescribable experience of joy, and it is in that very moment
that your options of leisure will be open to new achievements, having
all the oceans to be conquered.
Besides the construction, it is necessary to study and learn many other
things, like navigation, meteorology, safety procedures, first aid,
etc. Nevertheless, a good boat deserves a good captain.
We always have something to learn and will always have a new place to
visit. You will find plenty of interesting people on the way.
Dorival.
Aboard of Luthier
To be the winner with a boat made by your own hands in the backyard
of your house is priceless. Catarina & Dorival receiving the
trophy for the first place in the REFENO
Multichine 28 Atairu - the offshore cruising
sailboat
The Gaucho couple Ivana and Antonio Piqueres is learning in a very
pleasant way aboard their brand new MC28 Atairu what cruising
under sail is all about. Their first experiences are showing them that
the MC28 is exactly what they were dreaming with: a cruising boat designed
to go anywhere, in good or bad weather.
For her broad smile we can bet Ivana is enjoying the new experience
The Piqueres are a perfect example of people who intend to do just
that. In spite of being newcomers to the sailing scene, they dreamed
in having a sailboat on which they could live aboard for extended stretches
and accomplishing offshore passages.
As Atairu is a just launched boat, the latest trial of
the couple is quite informative about the adequacy of the design for
these purposes. They sent us an e-mail when they reported their first
important experiece telling us how Atairu behaved during
a fierce storm in the Guaiba, the lake linked to the ocean where they
are sailing at the moment:
Atairu trying the new sails on her parking place at the pier
Today (9/27),Atairu endured twenty-five knots
winds sailing close-hauled during a thunderstorm with torrential
rain (more than 20mm in two hours), when the seas became very steep
with short waves breaking sequentially, one after the other in consequence
of the shallow draught of the Guaiba Lake (3m), with froth all over,
the lake absolutely white and visibility zero. The GPS once in a while
pointed boat speed zero in consequence of waves and wind on the nose.
These hellish conditions lasted for more than two hours. We, novices
in the sport, were the only boat out on that occasion.
No wonder people in the verandah were incredulous! The boat is strong,
very strong! We trusted her and she didn’t disappoint us. We have
no more doubts; we love this boat that took us back to the club in safety.
We didn’t have the slightest chance to take photos on those conditions,
but the harbourmaster in the club’s marina contacted us by VHF
telling that it was awesome seeing the boat beating against the waves.
I’m attaching some photos of previous sailings. We had two sailing
lessons with Paulo Ribeiro, the Olympic coach of the Brasilian woomen’s
sailing team (Fernanda Oliveira/ Isabel Swan, bronze medallists in the
2008 Beijing Olympic Games)
Good winds for you from B & G Yacht Design. The boat is excellent!!!
No doubt Piqueres has many reasons to be proud. From his e-mail it
is clear that the point that impressed the couple more was to have survived
unscathed their first challenge, learning that the boat transmits plenty
of confidence considering its structural integrity. For two beginners,
a test like this increases the self-assuredness and the confidence in
the boat’s ability to cope with demanding conditions
Atairu is still missing installing the dodger and
the solar panel
But they were already using the boat intensely as a sort beach resort
and day sailer, and in this aspect the boat proved to be unbeatable,
since it is small enough to be crewed shorthanded and big enough to
live aboard with plenty of comfort. So, you that follow the MC28 Class
reports in our news, should wait for the next ‘flights’
of the Piqueres couple as soon as they get their sea legs…
Piqueres and Ivana toasting their new life aboard Atairu
Perhaps we have a hidden love affair with this class, possibly for
our long involvement with the MC 28 Fiu, which we built
and lived aboard for more than two years, but every time we see a couple
doing the same as Eileen and I did with so good remembrances, makes
us wish them lots of good luck with their plans.
Roberto Barros
The arrow shows the Geographic position of the club where Atairu
is stationed, the Yacht Club Jangadeiros, Porto Alegre , Brazil.
Pantanal 25 – Close to becoming
an international class
Favourable winds are blowing in the direction of the Pantanal 25
class. Intaschi Nautical Perfrmance, together with Coopermarine,
two companies from the state of São Paulo, Brazil, associated
in the production and sales of this boat, just accomplished the third
sale of a Pantanal 25, which will be produced using the moulds
Jorge Intaschi, the chairman of Intaschi Nautical Performance, produced
when constructingDark Ice, the Pantanal 25 he
built for his own use.
These moulds, sent to Coopermarine, a boatbuilding factory that woks
as a cooperative, already produced two hulls of the class, which soon
will be sailing. With the new sale already confirmed, it is missing
one unit more to be possible to establish the Pantanal 25 as
an official Brazilian class, not mentioning the addition of dozens of
amateur builders who are in various phases of construction in different
parts of this country.
Ronaldo Agondi, the Coopermarine director, took the chance of having
these orders to complete the set of moulds of the interior arrangement,
which were still lacking. These moulds are in their final stage of completion
and are becoming very attractive, showing excellent level of craftsmanship
and good design, with rounded walls and studied ergonomics.
With such nice work being obtained, the Pantanal 25 produced
by Coopermarine has, for sure, a winning commercial career, either in
the local market, or internationally. Since the class is spreading its
number of builders in the most varied countries, we are confident that
any factory with a line of production of the boat will have a good chance
of success in obtaining local and overseas clients.
The vanity basin counter wall built by Coopermarine has curved lines
to enhance standing headroom area inside the heads.
We have been regularly reporting about the racing career of the Pantanal
25 Dark Ice.
This boat won most races she competed in her 2008/2009 debut in the
Brazilian offshore racing scene. This July she was carefully prepared
for the most important event in the South American racing calendar,
the Ilha Bela International Sailing Week.
Demonstrating an awesome speed potential, Dark Ice reached
the windward mark in the long distance race together with the ‘big
wigs’ of the competition, and despite having the preference, had
its bowsprit hit by a fifty-seven, U$2,800,000.00 brand new racing machine,
and for everyone’s amazement, had no hull damage, except for a
bent bowsprit.
The accident ruined the series for Dark Ice, but who
cares after this surprising demonstration of structural integrity? We
reckon that what saved the Pantanal 25 was its light displacement,
and like a ping-pong ball when hit by a racket, it simply slipped sideways,
causing no damage to the boat. This is undoubtedly the great advantage
of sandwich composite construction.
The bowsprit bent with the impact of the collision without causing
any harm to the topside
However what brought the Pantanal 25 back to the headlines was
the article published by Revista Náutica, a local yachting magazine,
in its September issue, comparing this design with another twenty-five
foot cruiser-racer, also with a drop-keel system installed.
The comparison was somewhat inappropriate, since the Pantanal 25
is intended to be a camping boat, with emphasis in maximum trailerability,
with its scant 2.44m (eight feet) beam, a strategic measurement in the
United States and Canada, where this beam does not require special license
to be trailed, as compared to the 20% larger beam of the other boat.
Notwithstanding, in spite of the smaller beam, the Pantanal 25 visiblyoutstands the other boat in interior layout comfort, taking into
account that it has two double berths, secluded heads with door and
room for six persons to sleep when cruising. But the important remark
is what the journalist reported in his text: “…But she
is also a good performer in the racing course, thanks to her generous
sail area and her light displacement, especially when sailing close-hauled
or in any point of trim when the wind is light...
Zirrdeli, the first Pantanal 25 to be launched, is
stationed in the Marmara Sea.
We still worked in Rio de Janeiro when we completed the Pantanal
25 design. By chance, however, the first to acquire the plans was
Robert Boyd, from New South Wales, Australia. Being our first client
for this specific design, in a gesture of gratefulness, we presented
him with a touristic book about the Pantanal echo-system, one of the
most beautiful regions in the world, for the landscape of its swamps
and its diversity of wild-life. Even though he is very enthusiastic
about the plans, Robert had to postpone the beginning of his construction
for personal reasons. On the other hand, the second ones to acquire
the plans, the Turkish friends Orhan Sati & Bahatin Bedir, from
Istanbul, to our surprise, less than one year later, sent us very nice
photos of Zirrdeli, the Pantanal 25 they built together, stationed
in a marina in the Marmara Sea. Their boat, as far as we know, is the
first of the class to sail.
However this was just the beginning. Presently we have builders in
different stages of construction in various countries in four continents,
some of them having informed us about their intention to produce the
model commercially. So we are quite confident that soon the Pantanal
25 will be recognized as an international class
Dark Ice, the first Pantanal 25 to sail in Brazil
The third Intaschi Nautical Performance/Coopermarine sale, together
with Dark Ice, and the other boats under construction
in Brazil, will allow the homologation as a one-design class. The same
applies to other countries where three or more boats are being built.
Those who have their constructions under way, wanting to send us good
photos of their boats, we are interested in reporting about their progress
in our news.
The Pantanal 25 above, Rotfarth, together with Enigma
II, both built by Coopermarine, soon will be sailing in different
nautical centres, one in the Santos region, and the other in Brasilia,
the country’s capital.
Click
here to know more about the Pantanal 25 class
Samoa 28 Class new ‘brood’
coming into scene
The Samoa 28 Class is experiencing a fertile phases in its existence.
Every so often we receive photos of class hull’s being turned
over, of interiors almost completed, or boats getting close to being
concluded. Of course we are delighted with these reports, knowing that
the class is spreading its scope quickly.
One of these boats is Baleia, which is being built in
Macaé, an important industrial town linked to the rich oil fields
offshore the Brazilian coast about one hundred miles east of Rio de
Janeiro, by Ubiracy Pereira Jardim.
Being a true amateur, he is enjoying immensely his trial, to the point
of publishing a blog about his experiences, http://barcobaleia.blogspot.com,
where he is relating step by step each phase of his work.
Baleia has its hull almost
planked
Even though building Baleia, which he started this February,
constitutes quite an achievement, Ubiracy still found spare time to
construct another boat from our plans, the stitch-and-glue one-design
dinghy Andorinha (means swallow in Portuguese). You can also follow
this construction in the same blog.
Good for him! We are pretty sure he will enjoy every single moment
of both constructions.
From Blumenau, industrial town of German colonization in the state
of Santa Catarina, South Brazil, we received this September a set of
photos of the turning over of another Samoa 28 hull, Everest,
also an amateur construction made by her owner, Moacir Teobaldo Ribeiro.
Whenever we receive good photos of a turning over party sent by one
of our amateur builders, we feel like writing a note and publishing
it in our site, a tribute to that tremendous achievement obtained by
that builder.
Even if you are an outsider considering amateur boat building, we are
quite sure you understand how special this moment is in the life of
that person. It is the fulfillment of a dream, and is obtained with
the skills of his hands.
Perhaps because of the importance of the achievement, it is amazing
how easy it is to gather friends and sympathizers volunteering to assist
in the operation. On those occasions, calls the tradition that the owner
offers a barbecue, served with plenty of beer, but on condition that
be served only after the task had been completed. Not following this
elementary rule can be quite risky, from simply the guest starting to
disappear, to a serious mishap when turning the boat upside.
Everest ready for the turning
over
We published the turning of a MC28 hull a few weeks ago in our news,
and in that case the grid built around the hull was identical to this
shown in the photo above. Perhaps the other story served as inspiration
for a ‘quick to build cradle’ to assist in the operation.
It is the case of one builder assisting another whom he never heard
about, sometimes located at the other side of the planet. This is what
we can call globalized assistance!
Waiting for the crane to
arrive
The preparation of the turning jig represents more work than the turning
over itself, but even though anyone can go under the hull and see how
it looks like, everybody wants to see it in its upside position. It
must be the feeling that from then on one is assured that he already
has a boat.
Moacir was very wise in preparing the fairing of his hull to a high
degree of smoothness. Even considering that from now on the challenges
will be less demanding, working on the outside surface of the bottom
of the hull will be much more difficult in the future, and he didn’t
spare the opportunity to use the force of gravity in his favour. Another
correct procedure was the saturation with epoxy resin of the internal
surface of the strips along the planking process. Sealing the wood surface
gives dimensional stability to the strip planking, preventing absorption
of water vapor by the wooden natural porosity, this way avoiding undesirable
stresses caused by expansion of the strips.
The hull just after being
turned over, before the removal of the moulds.
However Moacir must take the care to sand the interior before applying
the internal fibreglass sheathing; since epoxy resin is so glossy, a
second coat of the same resin over the first one, in spite of the good
bonding properties of this compound, it does not assure a good adherence
between layers.
Another Samoa 28 builder, this one already seeing the light at the
end of the tunnel, is Bernardo Sampaio. His Samoa 28 Sailor II
is almost finished and soon will be launched. Bernardo is building
his boat in Ubatuba, a touristic town in the north shore of the state
of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
He has been informing us about the progress of his construction since
its first stages, and for the photos he sent us, his work is first class.
Ubatuba is an important nautical centre with large marinas and hundreds
of cruising sailboats stationed there. The place is very beautiful,
surrounded by rainforest, and affords a profusion of unspoiled cruising
grounds to explore.
Wherever there are cruising enthusiasts, a new design always stirs
curiosity among the other boat owners. As Sailor II will
be the first Samoa 28 to sail in that region, we are quite excited about
this inauguration, which for sure will be reported in our news.
Sailor II superstructure
ready to receive the finish coat of polyurethane
There are other Samoas 28 being built nearby, and their builders are
quite curious to see Sailor II in the water. To Bernardo,
and to the other local builders, we wish they enjoy every moment of
their construction. This note we hope is stamina for those who are coming
next, and we know that the Samoa 28 class is just waking up. At any
rate, there are not too many twenty eight foot sailboats with its comfortable
interior layout and offshore capabilities.
Sailor II ready for the keel
installation
Master and commander of the class is undoubtedly Daniel D’Angelo,
the Argentinean geologist who built the Samoa 28 Sirius, www.velerosirius.com.arin his home-garden in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With
no previous experience, he built such a good boat that the design became
popular all over the River Plate, and even beyond. His boat was launched
in October 2008, and since then Daniel made cruising trips to the neighbour
country Uruguay and to the delta in the Argentinean side of the river.
Now Daniel is planning for this summer a trip to the North, probably
ending up at Angra dos Reis, a town distant twelve hundred miles
from Buenos Aires.
Sirius was the first Samoa 28 to be launched, and for
the good reputation of the boat, there is no doubt that all the other
builders in ten different countries have enough reasons to run with
their work, so to be able to share with Sirius the pleasure
of cruising under sail.
Kiribati 36 Green Nomad nears interior
fit out completion
Summer is slowly arriving in Porto Alegre, Brasil, and as if to follow
the end of the season the work on Green Nomad is also changing somewhat.
The fitting of the internal furniture is nearing its completion. All
basic structures are in place and now it is more a finishing job, fitting
locker doors, ceiling and walls lining, floor non skid recovering and
painting of the internal plywood in white.
For a duo that is fitting out an interior for the first time, we are
in fact surprised by how far we have come.
The evolution of Green Nomad’s home office!
April 2009
End of August 2009
When we were selecting the pictures for this email it came to our minds
that we really ought to be missing a couple of screws on our heads,
or that our comfort/discomfort threshold must be ways far from the normal.
We have been living aboard during all the fitting out, which only started
really in March this year, when we bought and Marli started to fit the
insulation Styrofoam sheets. From December 2008 to March 2009 we lived
with the same provisional layout that we fitted in the boatyard. Two
civil construction plywood sheets and some beams provided a floor during
daytime and the beds at night, and all was improvised.
But little by little we started to gain ground during the last 3 months,
and now, looking around we can see that our new home is nearly finished!
All we did was planned as not to interfere with the basic needs too
much. Our galley had to be operational and we had to have a clean bed
at all times. Sometimes that required quite a bit of flexibility.
Two of the most versatile square metres in Porto
Alegre
Everything had more than one role, even the toilet
seat!
Washing requiredsome skill
Cooking inside an almost bare hull!
During these 3 months we processed roughly the following amounts of
building materials:
10 10mm marine plywood sheets
8 15mm marine plywood sheets
50 2m lengths of Cedar wood in varied sections
100 sheets of 1000x500x50mm Styrofoam
4 sheets of 1000x500x20mm Styrofoam
1 Formica sheet
2 cans of contact cement
3 tubes of glue for wood
15 tubes of Sykaflex 221
1000 screws
For the ones interested in values we spent in the above around 5000
Brazilian Reals, or some 2500 USD.
First time we went out and grabbed one of the 15mm plywood sheets to
cut I thought that I would not be able to move it. But at the end of
the day the two of us managed to handle them all, and today we can still
not believe that inside our 11m x 3.85m hull we fitted 18 sheets of
plywood measuring 2.5 x 1.6 m each!
Working in the dock at Clube dos Jangadeiros, in
Porto Alegre
Our great luck, being welcome as guests by the Clube dos Jangadeiros,
in Porto Alegre , Brazil. Without this safe port all things would be
more difficult.
Preparing the Port diesel tank bed prior to the
bedroom fit out
First things first: Our bed initiates the internal
fit out!
We started by the aft cabin and went on clockwise, doing the galley,
port settee, forward bunk, starboard settee, nav station, heads, engine
box and finally the galley sinks that are on top of the lifting-keel
box. The last touch was to fit the nav station backrest chair, which
will hold us in the rough seas. Already on the first boat we had such
an arrangement, with a longitudinal nav table and outboard facing chair,
but then it was fixed. Now we can rotate it and even raise it 20cm in
order to have a very comfortable watch position.
We are also well on our way installing the plumbing, and in two more
weeks shall start the electrics.
One of our friend’s kids explores the mad
sailors cave. So much to see!
Today we can already receive gests for dinner with comfort and hope
many of them will come here and in the places we plan to sail to in
the near future.
At last a real galley!
A long way we have come since the meals sitting
on the toilet
Madrugada’s ex nav table was given to us by Niels Rump, from
Farol Nautica, who is currently doing the restauration job to bring
the old racing champion back to its golden days
The dual sinks that drain into the keel well
Navigating the web for now, but hopefully the oceans
soon.
We surface mounted the heads washbasin to save locker space underneath
and to be able to bring it as far inboard as possible, attaining full
headroom above it.
For exterior fit out the only news for now are the fitting of the hard
dodger frame in aluminiun tubing. We had a full cockpit enclosure on
the first Green Nomad, what was easy to achieve due to the centre cockpit
design, but now we are getting the same effect by fitting a drop down
transparent back cover, which will be fastened to the cockpit seats
and floor at the back of the hard dodger, something similar to what
we saw in some of the Vendee Globe IMOCA 60 class boats.
Green Nomad waiting to get on her way to meet new and old friends!
We hope to have Green Nomad apt to sail away by the end of the year.
Even though we are loving our time here in Porto Alegre, for next winter
we long to be on some tropical location, trading oilskins for T shirts
and boots for Havaianas sandals ( a brazilian sandal that spread
around the world ).
Luis Manuel Pinho, luisdesenhos@gmail.com
is a member of our yacht design staff and presently is building his
new Green Nomad. This time he chose the Kiribati 36, the latest B &
G stock plan, mostly designed by him. As soon as the boat, which is
being built in Porto Alegre, South Brazil, is concluded, he intends,
together with his wife, Marli Werner, to return to the South Pacific,
this time feeling more prepared to face awkward situations thanks to
the swing keel system adopted in the design of the new boat.
Hello,
My name is Maik Biela. I’m 37 years old, German, and presently
live in Santiago de Chile.
I studied professional craftsmanship in carpentry some twenty years
ago in my country, Germany. I left Germany almost ten years ago to search
something new, and lived several years in the USA, where I also worked
in my profession, as a contractor in the construction business.
During this time I started visiting Chile, and was thinking why not
to go there and start something new, as I’m always looking and
searching for, something really new, and here I am, also working as
a contractor in construction with my professional skills and craftsmanship.
Like always, I was interested in boats, but this hobby is not really
affordable in Germany, so I was searching for possibilities to start
doing something in Chile, since there is a lot of ocean around this
country, and this gives you a lot of options.
So I obtained my captain licence to start sailing in a small Boat-Club
called Quintero.
I was lucky because just after I received my licence I had right away
the possibility to sail in races sponsored by this same club, and we
did very well, won a lot of races and this was when I wanted to have
my own sailboat, to go around, and enjoy water and nature on my own.
So I started searching how I could get a good sailboat for a good budget,
but buying new from the factory was not an option for me, so I was thinking
why not building one??!!
After searching and searching, I finally found Roberto Barros Yacht
Design, and I was much exited with the design of their boats. I ordered
study plans from various providers of plans for amateur boat building,
but finally chose a design from Roberto Barros Yacht Design, this because
it was a modern design, and I wanted to start with a boat where I have
space, neither too big, nor too small, and also for a reasonable budget.
I chose the Pantanal 25 and finally ordered its whole set of plans.
Then I began studying the plans with mixed feelings, sometimes I was
questioning my skills to build a boat like this, but started building
anyway and thinking: this has to work out, whatever effort it costs
because I want a sailboat!!!
I contacted Roberto Barros’s naval architect Luis Gouveia and
tried to clear a few questions about the construction and that worked
perfectly, getting quick responses to my questions, so I was looking
forward to receive the plans and get started as soon as possible.
I started in March 2009 to search wood for the hull construction,
and started building that same March. This was so quick, I couldn't
believe it. I was fascinated how everything worked out with plans and
the building process and my skills are more than enough to go further
building in my spare time, and now it’s difficult to separate
me from the process after long hours of building, it is fascinating!!!
I finished the hull in 4 months (only in my spare time). Then I called
a couple of friends to help me out to turn the hull, and now I can get
started to finish the interior...The hull turnover was very exiting
for me, because I really did not know how it was going to work out,
but the answer is in the pictures, everything worked great!!! I also
have to say: I’m looking in my general work many of the details,
almost ridiculous, and perhaps this is also the answer, that everything
worked out till now.
My experience to build a boat in Chile is mixed, I’m sorry to
say, but I must admit, it’s not a builder’s paradise, because
it’s very complicate to find specific materials for this work,
and a lot of companies here are only interested in selling products
in large quantities, what make things more difficult, so I searched
the internet, often for hours on end, called thousands of people until
I had a solution for the materials I needed, and also contacted Luis
Gouveia from Yacht Design very often to find solutions for materials.
Finally I got what I searched. I was a bit tired but satisfied, and
could go further with the building.
A lot of people are paying attention if they realize that somebody builds
a boat, and I had various talks about this. This is also a very interesting
part of building your own boat. Till now I built my boat alone, since
I want to enjoy everything during the building process all by myself.
As I said, I’m much focused on details, and because of this I
prefer to finish the boat alone, except the hull turnover and heavy
moving, whatever is impossible to do alone.
I’m exited to go further with the whole building, and can’t
wait to start sailing with the Pantanal.
I’m that bit crazy, I’m already thinking to build another
boat from Roberto Barros Yacht Design, but I have to finish first the
Pantanal, and then I’ll see which boat I will do next.
I will thank Roberto Barros Yacht Design, that they made it possible
with their designs to build a perfect and modern boat for an affordable
budget, and also to have fun in the building process. I also want to
mention that they provide an incredible customer service, being interested
in their builders!!!!
It’s fantastic to buy a brand new boat from the factory, but
the experience that I get from building my own boat is indescribable!!!
Thank's very much to all, and Roberto Barros Yacht Design for publishing
my pictures and publishing my experience. Thanks also to my friends
who helped me out in the hull turnover!!!!!
Will keep you updated,
Best regards
Capt.Maik Biela
Boat builder
Click on the photos to enlarge them
Click
here to know more about the Pantanal 25 class
Pantanal 25 being built in Argentina
- Daniel D’Angelo
After concluding the construction of the Samoa 28 Sirius,
which I built in my home garden, I started using it intensively since
its launching day. Not so long after, however, still remembering how
pleasurable its construction had been, and how rewarding was sailing
on her afterwards, I decided to build another boat from a different
design, this time a Pantanal 25.
This design interested me for various reasons, being its capacity of
draught control, low displacement and fast building technique the most
important points in my decision. Since the building method did not differ
significantly from the one adopted for the Sirius (foam
sandwich for the Pantanal 25, against wooden strip-planking sandwich
for the Sirius), I reckoned that the work would be
considerably lesser than it took to build the former one (two years,
eleven months)…and so far I didn’t find reasons to doubt
about my prediction. The foam is extremely easy to be handled and sanding
is a task for children! So, in April, 2009, I started the construction
of “Vega”.
With my previous experience and the confidence of being able to construct
a good boat, the work is progressing with celerity in spite of the chilly
weather in Buenos Aires this time of the year.
Taking advantage of what was left from autumn; I managed to conclude
the outside lamination of the hull in two weeks. (The same job when
building Sirius took two months to be accomplished!)
Coping simultaneously with different working fronts, I started to build
the drop-keel trunk, rudder and fin-keel hydrofoil framing.
When I resumed the work in late July, the cold weather prevented me
to deal with anything that required epoxy usage while working in the
open where the hull was being assembled. So I took a radical decision:
I would build the superstructure inside the barbecue shed in my garden,
making it in two halves to be joined later. This way in two weeks I
had the fore half concluded, which I brought to the outside, leaving
it on the mown, while I opened room to build the other half.
This part was a bit more troublesome to build, since its moulds were
more complex and the tightness of the room available made it difficult
for me to move around the working area. Before having to interrupt the
construction, since the time off from my job was finishing, I managed
to apply the foam sandwich along the whole aft part of the superstructure
and started sheathing it with fibreglass, the remaining left undone
representing one more day of work at most!
Meanwhile I ordered the mast and boom from a renowned local spar maker
as well as the special fittings from a specialized hardware workshop,
while with another Argentinean builder of Pantanal 25, Tomas Orcoyen,
we ordered together to a foundry the drop-keel bulb.
On my next time off, in September, I’ll start the installation
of the structural bulkheads, partitions and furniture, a task that I
reckon will take a fortnight to be accomplished. The sail inventory,
at least to start with, I intend to use the ones from my bigger yacht,
which surprisingly approximately fits in the smaller boat!
It is bliss to work with foam sandwich/epoxy. All going well, and
Mother Nature giving me a hand, it is possible that I manage to finish
the boat before scheduled, December 2009…an absolute record for
me!!!
I am quite anxious to try her and be able to enjoy her huge cockpit
already assembled at the aft half of the superstructure, a reason for
compliments from our visitors! It will be quite rewarding to see how
she performs in the tricky waters of River Plate. The expectation is
that she will be a fast boat
The Argentinean geologist Daniel D’Angelo was the first person
to complete the construction of a Samoa 28 (see his site: www.velerosirius.com.ar)
and having enjoyed the hobby of boatbuilding, he is in the way of a
second challenge, now the Pantanal 25 Vega.
Click on the photos to enlarge them
Click
here to know more about the Pantanal 25 class
Polar 65 Fraternidade first sea trial
Our largest polar yacht design, the Polar 65, has already its first
unit in operation. Fraternidade, (means fraternity
in Portuguese),the Polar 65 built by the Ukrainian/Brazilian
engineer Aleixo Belov is beginning an ambitious long distance cruising
plan. Aleixo intends to sail with his brand new expedition machine to
the most remote places in the planet, taking with him a crew of scientists,
journalists, film makers, divers and persons involved with the nautical
world.
This intrepid aim has already began with a twelve hundred miles two
way trip from Salvador, the city where the boat was built, to Fernando
de Noronha, an ocean island located in the South Atlantic.
Fraternidade anchored in Fernando
de Noronha. Photo Helio Viana
Aleixo is a very determined and efficient person. Being a well succeeded
entrepreneur, he managed to organize his life so he could accomplish
three round the world trips in solitary aboard a thirty-six foot fibreglass
yacht built by him, managing to travel for the time required for such
an extended voyage without having to discontinue his engineering firm.
After his third circumnavigation, close to complete sixty years of age,
he asked himself what he really wanted in life from then on: Have another
son? He had already a large family; to invest in the expansion of his
business? This was already happening, anyway. Build a highly technological
yacht from a creative design, a boat that would be capable of sailing
in any weather condition and to enter into the most difficult and inhospitable
places? Why not? That was, no doubt, a challenge with enough appeal
in his restless mind for him to dive head first in.
When returning from the third trip around the world he made a charter
from Ushuaya to the Antarctic Peninsula aboard Kotik, a polar yacht
built in Brazil by her owner, the Russian physicist and charter skipper
Oleg Belly, a firm supporter of swing keel monohull yachts, the keel
system adopted in his boat.
When returning from this charter, Aleixo was informed about the previous
experiences our office had in designing polar yachts, the most well
known being the Tillman Prize awarded Paratii, the first boat to circumnavigate
the Antarctic Continent singlehanded, crewed by the Brazilian adventurer
Amyr Klink
As we are great enthusiasts of swing keel systems for high latitude cruising
yachts, having in our portfolio other designs employing this method of
reducing draught, it was a natural consequence of our background in that
matter that we came out being chosen to design his future boat.
The Polar 65 has an interior layout adequate for charter business
in high latitudes
Strongly influenced by Oleg’s ideas, Aleixo came to our office
with a roll of sheets with sketches of the boat he was dreaming with.
He wanted a multi-chine steel yacht, ketch-rigged, and obviously with
a swing keel system. The boat being large enough, it was agreed that
the keel trunk would extend from bottom to deck forming a central case
around which the interior would be constructed. The keel should describe
a 90° arc when retracted and in its ascending path would be installed
an interesting innovation: a ratchet rail that allowed the keel to be
blocked at any height, eliminating the risk of falling in case of failure
in the lifting mechanism.
We took the task of designing this exciting boat as a unique opportunity
for developing something really innovative. Our deal with Belov contemplated
that the property of the design would be ours, since he had no interest
in exclusivity. On the other hand we offered him a special support in
designing the project, assisting him in customising some of his ideas
which wouldn’t interest other potential clients, and this happened
to be a very good deal. The stock plan was developed more according
to the taste of the general yachtsman, while Fraternidade
ended up resembling a typical service boat specified to operate under
the toughest conditions.
The more sophisticated style we chose for the Polar 65 differs
in some aspects from Fraternidade; however, the flexibility
of customizing the plans for any preference is one of the great advantages
of metallic construction. Rendered image: www.ideebr.com
Aleixo took about five years to build his boat and this he did in his
own company plant, employing his staff to run the construction. His
ingenuity was unlimited, and, since he invested a tremendous effort
in obtaining the maximum of quality all over the building process, his
boat became a hallmark in marine engineering. This joint venture was
extremely helpful for us in having such a demanding client working together
with our team.
Intending to spend from now on the most part of his life aboard, it
is no wonder that the boat looks like a cozy, nicely decorated home.
However Fraternidade is also a sophisticated
service boat. A good example of this is her pilot-house. Besides possessing
a ship’s size navigation table with space under to store paper
charts from the whole world, this compartment still has a bunk for the
off-watch officer and its instruments console rivals that of a ship
The list of navigation equipment at the piloting centre includes
auto-pilot, radar, chart plotter, wind station, VHF, SSB, a compass
coupled with three GPS for precise reading of the true course and AIS
automatic traffic detector. Photo Helio Viana
Fraternidade was launched early this year;
however her owner only considered the boat ready for a conclusive sea
trial this July. The first test programmed was a trip to Fernando de
Noronha, an ocean island six hundred miles northeast of Salvador, and
back, a light challenge for such a powerful machine, however quite adequate
for its first test.
As if she was an aircraft-carrier, Fraternidade never
heeled beyond five degrees. Photo Helio Viana
Aleixo Belov gathered a group of friends and collaborators in the construction
for this first trial, among them two friends of ours, the couple Mara
Blumer and Helio Viana, both being old salts and involved with our design
office, since they built and live aboard the Samoa 29 Maracatu,
with which they have already sailed dozens of thousand miles.
The first relevant observation they made was that with its impressive
twelve tons, five metres deep fully lowered swing-keel, the boat hardly
heeled at all, not even when hit by those frequent squalls that forms
under cumulus clouds in the trade winds. Roller-reefing the foresails
were much more a matter of protecting the canvas than an urge to relieve
rig stress. The uncluttered flush decks were seldom washed in those
conditions and the impression they felt was of being aboard a cruise
ship.
Sailing on her nose, Fraternidade hardly felt the
wind speed. The removable wooden floor in the central area of the deck
shuts the slot of the keel trunk. Photo Helio Viana
The trip to Fernando de Noronha and back was quite eventless. The crew
had the opportunity to enjoy themselves with sophisticated meals and
plenty of leisure time. The boat proved to be so easy to handle that
even a single person would be able to sail her. Helio found a few flaws
yet, typical of a new boat, like the lack of hand holders inside the
starboard heads, and the inexistence of a hook to hang the telephone
type shower nozzle, nothing that couldn’t be easily improved for
the next leg of the trip.
My friend got deeply impressed with the incredible spaciousness of
the saloon. The huge U-shaped settee has enough room for about twenty
persons to seat comfortably around two large tables. A complete galley
to port faced by a communication centre at starboard make the entertaining
area of the interior one of the most agreeable to be found in boats
this size.
Polar 65 Fraternidade is already part of the scenery.
From now on she will be seen in the most different places in any latitude.
Photo Helio Viana
Aleixo is very pleased with his boat, notwithstanding the fifty items
he added to his checklist to be improved before the next extended cruise.
Meanwhile a second Polar 65 has its construction in an advanced stage.
This one is being built by Metallic Boats, www.metallicboats.com.br,
at Triunfo, a town in Southern Brazil. So, soon we will have two boats
of the class demonstrating the practicality of retractable keels for
long range cruising yachts of large size. Since we have been consulted
by many other yachtsmen interested in knowing how this new design performs,
we are glad to have been informed that the boat passed with honours
in her fist test.
Polar 65: A cruising yacht for deep water and shoal. Rendered
image: www.ideebr.com
Multichine 28 being built in the Pacific
Northwest
The MC 28 class has one more hull concluded and turned upside. This
time the news came from Washington State, U.S.
Our client, David Cross, made an excellent work and his hull is very
well built. It is great to know that David surpassed the first phase
of the construction without difficulties. From now on he will find still
more pleasure in his work, since at end of each day he will see his
boat looking more like she will be.
The turning the hull upside party
Only those who build their own boats know the sensation it gives when
reaching this stage. From now on you actually are building your floating
home, and since the interior is made before the deck is installed, as
soon as the settees are in place, you already have room to begin receiving
your friends for a chat aboard, or, if you prefer, to toast the latest
achievement in the construction.
So far, so good
The MC28 class is becoming renowned as a fantastic cruising boat for
a small family. She is so easy to sail and requires so little effort
on the tiller, besides being super-stiff that she is by far becoming
our most frequently chosen model among middle-class couples of all ages
who intend to go cruising, or staying aboard for long periods. The class
even has owners living aboard permanently with little babies with them.
(See in ALL NEWS the article published a few weeks ago: Multichine 28
Vagamundo. Baby on board)
With dozens of boats of the class being built or sailing in different
places, it will be no surprise finding them meeting, or criss-crossing
each other’s path in the most remote cruising grounds. Even though
we have clients building different designs of ours in the Pacific Northwest,
David is the first to build a MC 28 hull in this region.
The final stages of the turning upside operation
Working in his spare time only, he reckons he will take another
two years to finish his boat. We will be very glad to know that a MC28
is sailing on that cruising paradise, Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands,
and beyond.
David informed us that the cast iron fin-keel originally designed for
the class is difficult to be ordered in his region, and asked if we
had an alternative solution for such a critical component.
We discovered that it is not only on the West Coast that it is problematic
to find a foundry willing to cast one keel only, a piece that neither
is large enough to bring a good profit nor sufficiently small to be
filled with leftovers .
The hull is safely brought back into the building
shed
Our clients in Europe seem to have faced the same problem and also
demanded an alternative solution. So we developed a keel made of steel
plate where you pour lead inside. The cover of this box is a 5/8”
thick plate where you open the threads to fix the keel bolts directly
on it. This keel is as good as the original, or even better, with the
same centre o gravity and weight, but causes less drag, since for the
same centre of gravity position it doesn’t require the bottom
bulb. Since this alternative had been already tested, we are pretty
sure that this drawback is perfectly overcome.
David also asked us a special sail plan with one metre taller mast
than the cruising rig of the standard design, since his area of sailing
is renowned for light winds. He also will do some club racing, and for
that purpose more canvas is quite desirable. Of course his boat will
be no more cat. A according to the European Union stability index (STIX);
however those who don’t want to cross the oceans along the roaring
forties in midwinter, being cat. B is more than satisfactory.
As David progresses with his work and sends us new photos, we will
be glad to report them in or news, as we use to do with other MC28 built
according to the plans.
The MC 28 is the most popular design in our list of blue water sailboat
stock plans. There is a permanent interest of potential cruising sailors
for this model and the number of MC 28 builders around the world never
stops increasing. In August 2009 we are getting close to two hundred
units being built in nine different countries; Argentine, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, England, Greece, Portugal, Spain and United States.
Those who chose to build a MC 28 might have different reasons to do
so; however, according to the information our clients pass us, the most
important decision factor is the MC 28 interior layout. Many of our
clients nurture a long dreamed endeavour to live aboard and/or to go
sailing on a long cruise bound for the most distant places.
And that very aspect is where the MC28 outstands. Concerning liveability
and cosiness of its cabin arrangement, definitively in this respect
the MC28 is “the boat”.
When people discover that you can walk with adequate headroom from
the aft cabin private hall to the main saloon, contouring one of the
largest galleys to be found in boats of this length, at that moment
our potential clients begin a flirt with the model that uses to become
a permanent love affair.
The MC 28 saloon is large enough to promote
a small party
But there is another key issue for captivating supporters for the class.
This design fits category A of the European Union Stability Index
(STIX), meaning that the boat is capable of standing a seven metres
high wave pattern for prolonged periods, and enduring up to fourteen
metres high eventual waves.
The confidence this compliance transmit to would be owners has
been one of the decision factors for choosing the MC 28 among many of
our builders.
The MC28 possesses a superb steering control
Every so often, when our clients choose to build a MC28, that commitment
usually becomes a point of no return in their lives. It is amazing how
they make plans for the future being the boat the means to accomplish
their dreams. It seems that all along the building process their adventure
plans become each day more consistent and this anticipation of future
enjoyment is the main spring in propelling them towards concluding the
construction. This attached attitude might seem too obvious, but it
is not.
A series produced boat which is delivered equipped with the list of
accessories recommended by the dealer doesn’t compare to the pleasure
of choosing, one by one, all the parts to be installed aboard the boat
you are making yourself. It is very like receiving the visit of Father
Christmas every month of the year. The same feeling of accomplishment
applies for no matter which part of the construction is completed. As
a matter of fact it uses to be reason for toasting at every end of a
working day.
This sensation of endless pleasure is only known by those who build
their own boats, and, coincidence or not, we seldom listen to any complaint
among our amateur builders about the hardness of home building.
We from B & G Yacht Design have our share of contribution in the
success of the enterprise. Our plans are very well detailed, and the
building manual we wrote to assist inexperienced builders covers every
phase of the construction, providing enough confidence to ensure confidence
to the inexperienced. The fact that the construction method is so straightforward
and friendly is also responsible for so many well succeeded boats of
the class already sailing.
The MC28 is a good performer when sailing close-hauled
We elected the MC 28 our reference stock plan for amateur construction,
establishing the same standards for every other project we develop.
However, since this plan had been chosen to be our basic standard, we
had no other choice than building one of them for ourselves, so we could
be absolutely sure that all the information contained in the plans and
in the building manual were correct.
Just to double-check, we didn’t build only one MC28, but took
the opportunity to build a second together. That was how the MC28 Fiu
and Makai were born. These boats
sailed already dozens of thousand miles without ever having the slightest
construction failure, and after almost ten years of usage, both of them
are as good as new.
Our attitude generated a tremendous feeling of confidence in potential
cruising sailors acquainted with us, who followed our construction wit
great enthusiasm, many of them paying regular visits to our building
shed. During that time it was amazing the number of other people who
started building MC28
The Mc28 interior is bright and functional
Presently the good reputation of the class spreads internationally
and for all that alteady happened with the class in increasing its reputation,
we are pretty confident that in years to come many other new builders
will discover why the MC28 class is becoming synonymous of a cruising
floating-home.
The all around vision from inside the cabin
is highly praised by MC28 owners
Rendered images: www.ideebr.com Click
here to know more about the Multichine 28
Multichine 26C class is spreading its
horizons
This news came from Istambul, Turkey. Ömer Kircal, a client of
ours who is building a MC26C, sent us a slide show about the construction
of his almost finished sailboat, Evrensel, (meaning
universal in Turkish).
The slides are particularly appealing because they cover all phases
of the construction, from the building of a makeshift shed to the attachment
of a foam insulated ceiling liner under the trunk coach-roof.
We really appreciated watching the photos. We found them so didactic
that we replayed them various times until we could remember by heart
every single detail shown. The subtitles are written in Turkish, but,
for those like us who don’t understand Turkish, why will anybody
need reading subtitles for such self explanatory figures?
Ömer, with the assistance of his wife and friends, accomplished
a wonderful job. For us from B & G yacht Design, Ömer’s
achievement is quite rewarding. At first place because he found the
plans comprehensive and well detailed enough not to need extra assistance
from us. More important yet, is the high quality of the work accomplished
throughout the construction. Last but not least, what a nice interior
doesEvrensel possess! Thanks to the Kircal’s
family good taste, it is hard to believe it’s an amateur construction.
Click on images to enlarge them
Click
here to know more about the Multichine 26C class
Kiribati 36 Green Nomad construction latest
news.
Luis Manuel Pinho, our new collaborator, is an engineer, yacht designer
and cruising sailor of great personal experience. He travelled for nearly
ten years to the most distant islands in the South Pacific aboard Green
Nomad, a thirty-six foot home-built steel sailboat, in company of his
wife, Marli Werner. He sold his boat in Australia and flied to Brazil,
the country where he found the most favourable costs/benefit conditions
for building a one-off yacht, and now he is building there a new Green
Nomad, this time in aluminium.
The new boat, a Kiribati 36, our latest stock plan mostly designed
by himself, is being finished in a very fast pace. The couple is already
living aboard, an experience that anticipates future adventures they
so anxiously are dreaming with.
You, who are following the saga of the enterprising couple regularly
in our site, will like to know how they are doing:
“We are amazed with the productivity you can achieve doing
the interior joinery work when you have it modeled in 3D in a cad program.
It has been less than 2 months since we started the interior building,
and you can see in the pictures how far we have come!
Launch day....
Less than 2 months of work
Ideally we would have used the files to have all plywood parts
CNC cut but, as most amateur boat builders, we have a tight budget,
so our CNC is a not cutting edge but it works.
Using the projected plywood parts’ shapes, we nest them manually
in the area of a plywood sheet, and using our own CNC machine ( from
Copy’n Cut) we hand copy them into A4 pages and walk out to draw
them in the real plywood sheets, and using a hand jig-saw we cut the
parts.
We pre-cut all parts like this. They come aboard with all the slots
for fitting around the aluminum structure. Very little on the spot adjusting
is needed. We got to mount 3 bulkheads in the same day!
Hand copying...
Transferring to the plywood sheet...
Bulkheads cut and ready to come aboard
We are doing all the work by ourselves and surprised with the
ground we cover each day. Apart from the unstoppable sneezing due to
dust, it is being an agreeable experience.
Each day the living a board gets a little more comfortable. Not
long after a part is fixed in place it is summoned into service!
Settee being finished...
Settee in use!
One curious detail: A friend is doing the restauration work of
one of Brazil’s most famous ocean racers, Madrugada, and he offered
us the old nav table, and guess what..., it fits perfectly in the spot
allocated for it on Green Nomad!
Madrugada’s nav table being fixed. It
will sail again with Green Nomad!
An amazing feature is the dimensional precision achieved with CNC
kit boat building.
The interior furniture modeled around the aluminum structure in the
same cad program fits over it perfectly, with insignificant deviation
from the computer model size.
From the structural joinery work we are only missing the nav station
and the head. After that we will tackle the walls and ceiling linings,
which will be done using recycled white plastic 2mm sheets.
And as not all is work, we are having some fun along the way, meeting
old friends here in Porto Alegre. Today we received the visit from Anselmo
and Tania, which came alongside in their steel MC37 37 Taihú,
another boat of B & G Yacht design . We met them in the Caribbean
in 1997.
A nice surprise with the visit from Anselmo
and Tânia, from Taihú
Bora-Bora 28 Flor Dágua, a symbol
of perfect happiness
Gunk-holing in a tropical sea shore, passing over shallow sandbanks
or coral heads aboard an open-bridged cat without causing any harm to
its bottom can be one of the most exhilarating sailing experiences one
can try out with a cruising sailboat.
Different from central cabin cats, the Bora-Bora 28 has sleeping accommodations,
galley, heads and dinette inside each hull, while lateral resistance
and steering control are provided by pivoting centerboards and rudders.
These features contribute for a light displacement boat with a very
small draught, (scants 0.28m – 11”) when the appendices
are lifted.
The decision to design a catamaran with such characteristics was taken
when Astrid Barros, our PhD in computational fluid dynamics, was still
graduating in naval architecture. She had the chance to take part in
the Recife to Fernando de Noronha Island Regatta, a very popular three-hundred
miles offshore race run annually in the South Atlantic, aboard a multihull
with an all women crew, when her boat was the second to cross the line,
loosing the first position in the last minutes of the race to a much
larger multihull, the absolute favorite for the event.
That achievement resulted in a preference for multihull sailboats,
which impelled her to decide for designing an innovative catamaran.
Astrid, wearing a white shirt, is the second from right assisting
hoisting the mainsail of the trimaran Bahia during the 2002 Recife to
Fernando de Noronha race. For the second place in the race, the girls
were awarded a six burner stove, one burner for each crewmember.
At that time B & G Yacht Design office had no multihull in its
collection of stock plans, so the developing of the design, having Astrid
as project manager, happened in an atmosphere of great enthusiasm, including
the intention of building one of these boats for her own use. She wished
to sail along the tropical Brazilian coats, which stretches in a succession
of coastal lagoons separated from the ocean by coral reefs accessible
to shallow draught boats only.
The resulting design, specified for the plywood/epoxy building method,
was totally turned towards amateur construction. With symmetric double-chine
narrow hulls held together by two quite easy to make box-like wooden
beams and a flat platform, it was the simplest solution she could envisage
for an inexperienced amateur to build.
Other priorities deterred Astrid from building her own boat at the
time; however this didn’t matter so much, since, as soon as the
Bora-Bora 28 was introduced in our list of stock plans, it began stirring
a great interest in the nautical community and sold various copies in
a run.
Our most enthusiastic client came from Bahia, a state in the northeast
region of Brazil, a very popular cruising destination for many Europeans,
particularly French sailors.
Carlos Mario Pedregal, a businessman of Spanish origin, found in the
touristic city of Salvador the best place in the world to live in. Being
the first to acquire the plans, in spite of never having built a boat
before, he constructed Flor D’água in record time,
making the whole work almost unassisted. He chose the Bora-Bora 28 intending
to take part in local races, to cruise with his family, and above all,
to beach his cat’s bows in the pristine white palm fringed sand
beaches typical of that region, and he found out that the Bora-Bora
was the best boat for those purposes.
In September 2005 Flor D’água took part in the Recife
to Fernando de Noronha race, when she had the opportunity to show her
speed potential, being among the firsts to cross the line, and following,
won the Fernando de Noronha to Natal Regatta, the race created to take
the participants back to the continent.. After sailing more than one
thousand miles in the open sea, Flor D’água returned to
Salvador, where Carlos Mario began his second phase of usage, profiting
from the cruising potential of his boat. The exploits he managed to
accomplish with his boat is capable of letting any cruising sailor with
his mouth watering.
The best place to “park” your boat
on a Sunday holiday
Happy children, happy sailing
The water might be warm, but the beer is ice-cold
There is room aboard the Bora-Bora 28 for any
fantasy.
The capacity of reducing draught is becoming
an important feature in many cruising areas.
The Bora-Bora 28 heads is quite roomy
The unobstructed bridge-deck has enough room
to hold a party on it.
Flavio Rodrigues, owner of Flab Boatyards, www.flab.com.br,
from Campinas, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, proudly announces the launching
of the Samoa 34 Zait. We have just published the article – “Samoa
34 Zait, a touch of art in wood/epoxy construction”,
reporting the conclusion of Zait’s
construction, and now we are presenting Flavio’s son, Ivan Rodrigues,
custom video for the event. Daniel Sequerra, Zait’s
owner, is extremely pleased with his boat and in a few
days more he will be doing the sea trial of his yacht, sailing from
the launching place, Ubatuba, a town in the north shore of t5he state
of Sao Paulo, to Rio de Janeiro, one hundred twenty miles away.
Sorry for the lyrics in the sound track being in a foreign language.
It would be asking too much to the author, who composed the tune exclusively
for the event, to translate the song into English. Note the incredible
gloss of the topsides paint-work. Flavio sent us this communiqué:
To my friends June 2, 2009 I had the pleasure of launching another sailboat from
our boatyard. Zait, belonging to our dear friend
Daniel Sequerra, floated graciously as if she already knew that the
sea was her dwelling, and her bows sliced the water effortlessly and
with elegance under the command of her skipper.
That was just a short-lasting event; however brief, it served to
show one more time how nice this design is. I would like to share with
you the emotion this video provided on our spirits, the very moment
Zait’s keeltouched the water
We have been showing photos of different Multichines 28 regularly in
our site, all of them revealing cozy and inviting interior layouts.
However, since there are a large number of these boats under construction
or being finished, we keep receiving more photos of just concluded new
ones, almost invariably with their owners in a state of grace, having
the most different plans for their boats, ranging from simply living
aboard to ambitious overseas cruises.
We wonder why so many choose this design as the boats of their lives.
Better than expressing our impressions, we rather prefer to listen to
what those owners have to say.
The most recent e-mail we received came from Porto Alegre, Brazil,
a town situated one hundred miles away from the sea, separated from
the Atlantic by an inland sea, large enough to allow that town to be
an active sailing centre, and, by luck, a stronghold of sailboats from
our office. Our clients this time are the couple from Rio Grande do
Sul, the southernmost Brazilian state, who completed their MC28 Atairu
a few weeks ago; the engineer Antonio Piqueres and his wife Ivana. They
wrote:
“Dear friends from B & G Yacht Design.
How exciting it is to live aboard! The MC28 is what we can call
a “complete boat”. We took these photos just yesterday.
We prepared a rice dish, never missing the traditional local sausage,
washed down by Rio Grande red wine (of course not before sipping the
“mate” as appetizer.) Aboard Atairu everything is functioning
perfectly, and we feel like being at home. (We have a fridge –
Ivana suggests inverting the position of the sinks with the fridge or
placing a step for an easier access to this deep compartment.) We also
have cold and hot pressurized water, so we don’t miss anything.
As a matter of fact Atairu is becoming a small home. (That is how our
club mates are calling the boat.) We just received our new sails and
as soon they are hoisted we send you our impressions about the boat’s
performance, of course the opinion of beginners. Soon we have plans
for one week sailing, our first cruise along the Guaiba River, promising
you to send photos of this first adventure. It’s going to be quite
a test, considering the many sandbanks we will find in the way, but
wherever there will be depth enough for our keel to pass over, we will
be there. Who knows if we don’t end up meeting you in Australia.
A long journey begins with the first step, isn’t it so? (Sometimes
we believe dear Atairu is complaining being lashed to a pier…)
Love for you all… and thanks for the excellent design
Ivana and Piqueres”
The MC28
galley is reason of envy from owners of much larger sailboats
Can you believe
this is only a twenty-eight foot sailboat? Note the “mate”
cup and its silver sucking pipe. “Mate” infusion bowl is
an indispensable accessory for any authentic “Gaucho”.
The light
coloured woods employed in the decoration of this MC28 enhance the sensation
of spaciousness in the saloon.
Ivana and
Piqueres toast their first class supper aboard with a Rio Grande wine
of good harvest.
Atairu lashed
to the pier at the Jangadeiros Yacht Club in Guaiba River, Porto Alegre,
South Brazil.
***
Another eloquent e-mail we received from a MC28 Class
owner came from Canadá.
Roberto Roque is a Brazilian born Canadian who lives in Calgary, Alberta.
His boat, Stella del Fioravante is presently stationed
at Florianopolis, a town in South Brazil, placed in a very beautiful
island, called by many the Brazilian New Zealand:
“I’d been sailing in the West Coast (Wet Coast, as
they call it here.) We were a group of acquaintances in five different
boats. I was aboard a series produced thirty-four foot French sailboat
with two other friends. The other boats were larger, between 43 and
46 feet. One day there was a club race and we managed to win in corrected
time. I didn’t appreciate the boat at all, even though she was
extremely comfortable. I simply execrated the mainsail mast furling
system, which I would never install in a boat of mine. The gadget is
prone to malfunctioning.
The boat had a serious tendency to broach, and in fact we
broached many times. The wind was blowing at 12 – 15 knots, but
increased suddenly in vicious gusts, when we couldn’t manage to
hold her on course. If we reefed, the boat slowed down terribly. When
the wind surpassed twenty knots it was almost impossible to control
it. Above twenty knots we had to reef both sails to half their sizes.
I guess the rudder was sub dimensioned and the sail plan somehow displaced
from its correct position. Even the larger boats of our fleet also broached
when hit by harder gusts. The gossip I heard here is that the factory
that built our boat produces better models than those intended for the
North American charter or leisure market, when they are fabricated to
be sold in Europe.
Not wanting to sound cocky, (even though my Canadian mates most
probably thought I was), my dear MC28 stands twenty-five knots winds
without any difficulty.
In my maiden voyage, going from Rio de Janeiro to Florianópolis,
we were sailing full-canvassed with the auto-pilot steering the boat
without complaints, and we never had to touch the tiller, except for
changing course or to anchor, since expecting the auto-pilot to do this
would be wanting too much. We knew we had to exchange the Genoa for
the Yankee, since the boat was “flying”, but the seas were
too rough to invite us going forward and we let her take care of herself.
And she did just that in great style, sailing straight as an arrow towards
our destination.
I simply can’t understand why some designers of production
boats don’t manage to produce decent sailboats. If the boat I
was in at least sailed well in light winds, it would be o.k. However,
in light winds it hardly moved, and when the wind freshened, the boat
disliked it. In short, it seems that the boat didn’t like sailing.
It is only suited to cook aboard, for sun drenching in the foredeck
or to drink beer or wine when docked in the marina.
I launched my local boat (a twenty-six foot, water-ballasted trailerable
sailboat) this weekend, having my son as crew. She has about the same
sins. She is easy to control up to twelve knots of wind, then she becomes
difficult to be steered. You must reef her or have a quick action slacking
the sheets in the puffs. How much I miss my Fiori!
I hope to travel to Brazil soon, craving to be back aboard that
son of a gun. I intend to spend more time in that country from now on.
I would love to sail up to Fernando de Noronha Island.
I’m affraid my club mates think I am telling too much
boloney about Fiori. What can I do? A boat that I steer with two fingers
when sailing in fifteen knots…and with 25 knots winds, change
tacks with jib only as if she was a laser… a boat that doesn’t
overload the automatic pilot, since she is extremely well balanced…there
is no chance not to be haughty…”
Samoa 34 Zait, a touch of art in wood/epoxy
construction
There must be something ludic about the Samoa 34 Class. For some almost
exoteric reason, each new boat from this design stands out as a masterpiece
in wood work, to the point to be chosen as cover stories in specialized
magazines. A few weeks ago we reported the launching of Luthier, a home
built Samoa 34 so beautiful that the most adequate name she deserved
had to be that one. The photos shown in our article: Samoa 34 Luthier;
the wind calls the tune (see article in all news, rolling the page),
are good witness of our words.
Zait, the latest member of the class is another Samoa 34 to give evidence
to this tradition. Built by Flab Boatyards, from Campinas, a town two
hundred kilometers inland from the port of Santos, Brazil, this new
Samoa 34 is reason for great pride, either from part of her builder,
Flavio Rodrigues, or the owner, the yachtsman Daniel Sequerra.
Daniel is a lover of classic wooden boats. He solemnly despises clorox-box
style fiberglass series produced yachts and when the time had come for
him to choose a yacht to cruise with his family, he did not hesitate
for one second in choosing the Samoa 34 among our list of plans. Not
for the design being a classic one, what by all means it is not, but
for being a wooden boat that could bring the reminiscences of his father’s
yacht cabin bright-work.
When we first met Daniel, it was at our office, then established in
Rio de Janeiro. At that time we didn’t know about his obsession
for classic lines. When he was searching through our list of designs,
the first he really liked was the Samoa 34. During his childhood he
used to sail with his Dutch father aboard a Sparkman Stephens forty
foot classic yacht, the pride of the family, and those pleasant remembrances
made him look for something that most closely reminded those pleasant
memories.
He asked our advice about a custom boatyard which we could recommend,
and we suggested him to visited Flab Boatyard, to see for himself the
high standards of that builder. So he did, and soon after Zait was under
construction. It was much later that, navigating through our web-site;
Daniel discovered the Aventura 40 in our list of stock plans. Had he
known about the existence of that design, the Aventura 40 would have
been his inevitable choice. He didn’t know yet that we also had
a sweet tooth for classic lines, and had designed that classic yacht,
much in the same style of his father’s, just for fun. But then
it was too late, now only remaining for him the possibility of a future
upgrade.
But nothing could stop Daniel from expending a terrific effort in creating
the most exquisite Samoa 34 ever built. And that is what we are glad
to show first-hand to our readers. The fine detailing in Zait’s
construction is an authentic work of art.
If there is a point of commonsense about the Samoa 34 design, is the
fact that its length, sail area and displacement are close to the maximum
for a couple to sail in a long distance cruise without being too tiresome
for maneuvering. On the other hand its interior layout is that of a
small apartment, with comfortable quarters from forepeak to transom.
The headroom is excellent, you have accommodation for two couples, the
heads is large enough to have a good shower installed and the galley
is bliss for a cordon bleu who likes to sail. To crown it all the central
area of the boat has a 360° vision to the outside, making the interior
airy and well illuminated by natural light.
However, if the Samoa 34 wasn’t a really good sailboat regarding
its performance compared to most series produced cruising boats of the
same size; its fame wouldn’t be so widespread. Our clients who
own one of these boats never stop praising their yachts for their speed,
especially in fresher winds and the highlight of the model behavior
is the excellent control and extreme lightness of its rudder in any
sea conditions.
Builders of MC28 open sea cruising sailboat meet in Brasília,
Brazil’s capital, for a day-sail in Lake Paranoá.
An improbable encounter happened in May, 2, 2009 in Lake Paranoá,
Brasilia’s artificial reservoir built some fifty years ago when
the new capital was constructed, some one thousand metres above sea
level, in a place then inhabited by primitive Indians.
The Air Force pilot Breno Lima is one of the pioneers in building
a MC28 Class ocean cruising sailboat. His Utopya,
the second MC28 to be launched, is stationed there since a couple of
years ago, when he was transferred from the city of Salvador, in the
Northeast of Brazil to the capital of the country.
He invited three other local amateur builders, two of them building
other MC28 yachts, while the third one is in the final stages of construction
of a MC36SK, the three of them from the neighbour state of Goiás.
The MC28 Class community is quite a friendly group and these builders
and Breno had become acquainted by means of our forum in internet.
Utopyia on its launching
day
The meeting began with Breno telling his new friends about the first
days of the MC28 Class, of which Utopya had
an important role in its history, especially for her participation in
the Recife to Fernando de Noronha Island race, a very popular three
hundred mile open sea event, shortly after its launching. Then they
chatted about amateur construction and how is the experience of living
aboard a MC28, a test Breno was the first to try. Together with his
wife, Marcia Seixas, they lived aboard for more than five years in a
local yacht club at the city of Recife, where he was serving as an air
force pilot.
As there was no wind during that morning, they left the club motoring,
so the guests could enjoy a longer holiday in the lake, giving them
a better opportunity to see how the boat behaved when motoring. The
efficient sound barrier engine compartment insulation was especially
praised, since the engine noise was hardly listened outside the cabin.
A few miles and some beers later they returned to the club for lunch
and to wait for the customary afternoon wind…
Chats did not resume to MC28 Class issues, but soon they were talking
about the MC36SK cruising sailboat that Carlos Eduardo, one of Breno’s
guests that day, is building in Goiania, a nearby city, the capital
of the state of Goiás. Carlos Eduardo’s lessons during
the construction of his steel yacht might be of great value for Breno,
who was commemorating the upgrade of Utopya,
having acquired the just finished plans of the aluminiun swing keel
cruising sailboat Kiribati 36. That was a case of love at first sight,
and once more he will be a pioneer in acquiring a new design from B
& G Yacht Design.
After lunch, finally the wind started to blow and the group had the
opportunity of trying a MC28 sailing under full canvass. First it was
blowing at about twelve knots, fresh enough to allow the future MC28
sailors to have a feeling on how the model performed on these conditions.
They could observe how stable and light helmed the boat is, and how
easy she maneuvers. A few tacks later, the group was rewarded with a
gorgeous sunset over the presidential palace and a happy return to the
yacht club.
Breno then let them know that other day-outs aboard Utopya
were welcome in the future, either to the three guests, or to other
sailors interested in the MC28 Class. Breno’s contact e-mail is:
brenolima@hotmail.com. People
from overseas who happen to be visiting Brazil’s capital are welcome
too.
Eduardo Perin, one of the guests of the day, who is building a MC28
by himself in Goiania, and is the author of the video attached, sent
us an e-mail relating his impressions about Utopya,
the cruising fin-keeler designed to cross oceans
sailing amidst the South American central plateau savannah, one thousand
kilometres away from the sea:
“Dear folks from B & G Yacht Design
I would like to congratulate you for the excellent work you have accomplished
when designing the MC28. I had no doubt the plans were really fantastic,
however I didn’t have the chance to sail one of them yet.
When I discovered Utopya stationed so close to
where I live, it is no surprise that I tried to find out who was the
owner of that beautiful boat. I contacted him by means of your forum,
very useful in this respect, and doing so, received this gentle invitation
from Breno Lima, and this way had the chance to test a sister-ship of
my future boat.
Utopia is a wonderful sailboat. After
ten years of intensive usage she is as good as new, and this is consequence
of the good care Breno takes with his creation. Utopia
is second to no other MC28 in quality of construction and decorative
charm. A competent skipper and good boat-keeper like him deserves owning
such a nice boat.
We went out twice that Saturday; one under engine, and a second
time after lunching at the Yacht Club Brasília. For our luck
we were rewarded with a nice breeze in the afternoon When we were motoring, I had the chance to observe how silent the
boat is, even when at full revs, and the speed was very good. But the
great moment was when we hoisted sails. During the last hours in the
afternoon the breeze became really fresh, reaching nearly twenty knots
in the puffs. In spite of having all sails up, we were more interested
in chatting and learning to know how the boat performed than to care
about the wind strength. The boat hardly heeled at all and the tiller
was always as light as a feather, an authentic highbred cruising sailboat
that sails really fast!
Only on Monday I could confirm the wind speed, and came to know
that it reached twenty knots. That Saturday was being raced the classificatory
series for the Star Class World Championship, and we were told there
were a few broken spars and DNFs. However for Utopya,
she was literarily sailing in a pond. More than ever I am convinced
that I made the best choice for my definitive cruising boat. I thank
you from the B & G team for such a nice design, the MC28.
Eduardo Perin, future owner of the MC28 Pyrus.”
Click on the photos to enlarge them
Click
here to know more about the MC28. Click
here to know more about the Kiribati 36
*** More about the MC28 Class
If you are American, or perhaps from the U.K., let’s say, and
is a lover of the cruising life, in case you are looking for a proper
yacht for ocean cruising, no matter how eager you are to make your dreams
come true, you might not be considering buying it right now. With such
economic crisis, it is probable that it is not the right moment to borrow
money to buy an expensive series-produced model which might not even
be exactly the boat you want.
Ten years of continuous prosperity accustomed sailors to buy commercial
models, many of them not necessarily suited for long distance passages,
the few ones unequivocally intended for cruising being so expensive
that acquiring one of them in a boat show became a matter for only a
few.
We began our activities in Brazil, a country where the middle class
hardly could afford buying a factory built yacht, never mentioning an
imported model, for which custom duties were prohibitive.
We had returned from an idyllic two and a half years voyage to the
South Pacific, having sailed some eight thousand miles in two oceans
aboard a twenty-five foot engineless sailboat in the happiest adventure
of our lives. (You may learn about this story reading the book “Rio
to Polynesia” published in our site in English with link from
our first page.) That experience gave us an important lesson, that happiness
has nothing to do with boat’s lenght, and that you don’t
need to be rich to live a happy life aboard.
But we also learned that a boat for travelling overseas had to be structurally
very strong and its systems needed to be reliable and simple to upkeep.
Another crucial matter, learnt the hard way in our case, was that it
also needed to be comfortable enough, with adequate headroom and inboard
shower facilities, a well planed galley and a cozy owner’s cabin,
in order to provide a decent life for its crew. This seems to be very
obvious, but in practice our experience showed that these predicaments
were not the rule among the sailboats we met on our way.
Back to Brazil we decided to start a career of yacht designers having
in mind providing to other cruising sailors the right type of boats
for ocean passages. However, at that time it was difficult to convince
boat builders that there was a good market for cruising yachts. Builders,
at least in that country, believed that their products had to be cruiser-racers.
They claimed that only “crazy people” would consider travelling
overseas in a small sailboat.
There is nothing more frustrating than having to hear from others
that you are crazy if you tell them that you intend to do what you always
dreamed with.
We were so sure the tycoons of the industry were mistaken with their
premises that we decided to challenge their opinions and started designing
boats for amateur construction. We were so surprised with the interest
for our first plan, The MC23, which sold like bananas, that soon we
became recognized as specialists in this segment of yacht design. Eventually
we were selling more sets of plans for the regional market than the
whole local industry together was selling their boats.
It was the beginning of the nineties. With the experience acquired
with the development of the MC23, we decided to design the MC28, the
stock plan that highlighted our career as yacht designers for amateur
construction. When the first boats of the class were launched, they
promoted the design to a level that it became an icon among the cruising
yachtsmen, as the ultimate boat for amateur construction, and the model
became considered one of the few of that size that was suited to go
for a round the world trip in safety and comfort.
In very short time the class began to spread internationally and now
there are MC28 built or being constructed in various countries.
In May 2007, perhaps for the English blood that runs in the veins of
half the B & G yacht Design team, we decided to move our office
from Rio de Janeiro to Perth, Western Australia, where we are now established.
However the seeds of the MC28 class planted in the most different
places never stopped to germinate, and now we begin to harvest the first
accomplishments of MC28 owners.
We are showing below photos of two recent adventures accomplished
by MC28 owners which we already published in our news.
Vagamundo is owned by Ricardo Campos. He is a professional diver who
built his boat with his own hands at the city of Vitoria, Brazil, during
his long holidays between deep sea dives. When he finished the construction,
together with his wife Ivana and little João, their three months
old baby, went for a test cruise to Ilha Grande, a tropical Island some
four hundred miles south of his town, to let them get settled with the
life aboard. They intend to leave for a long distance cruise as soon
as João gets his sea legs, in a trip without any time schedule
and with undefined destiny. Incidentally Vagamundo means globetrotter
in Portuguese.
Vagamundo’s family
Vagamundo in Ilha Grande
It seems like little João is enjoying the new
home
Vagamundo’s backyard, Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara
Bay
João and Ivana in the companionway hatch
João inspecting the instruments
Click on images
to enlarge them.
Another outstanding story about the MC28 is that of Access, the MC28
Flavio Bezerra, a computer annalist, built practically alone in Rio
de Janeiro. Short of cash, he left Rio single-handed to the West Indies
before he saved enough money to buy an inboard engine and no means to
supply energy to charge his batteries. Five days before arriving in
Saint Martin, without any self-steering device, Access collided with
a whale, damaging the rudder, which he jury-rigged. After the collision
his boat was caught in a storm and he had to stay awake for days on
end to manage to steer the boat with a makeshift rudder.
Presently, after sailing from Saint Martin to English Harbour, Flavio
is working as project manager in the rebuilding of the Antigua Airport.
When his kitty will be replenished with the savings from his job, he
intends to buy an engine and sail to the Pacific Ocean.
Click on images to enlarge them
Kiribati 36 Green Nomad
Hull number one of the Kiribati 36 design is floating since December
16th 2008, and the boat name is Green Nomad.
This boat is going to take their owners in a repeat of their voyage
that started in Brazil and went across the Pacific Ocean, which only
confirmed that the place they want to be in is some remote South Pacific
Island.
The first Green Nomad was a van de Stadt 36
built in steel. Here she is at anchor in the Florida group of
the Solomon Islands.
After selling the first Green Nomad in Australia in 2006, at the end
of a 10 year and 20000 nautical miles trip, Luis Manuel and Marli
went back to Brazil, not because their love of the cruising life had
ended, but family matters required their presence.
An unexpected turn of events saw them ready to take the cruising life
again, but now they needed a boat!. Even before they had sold
their first boat, they already knew what they wanted from a new boat
should they ever build another, and basically what they required is
what you can see in the pages describing the Kiribati 36 design.
With the long dated relationship they had with Roberto Barros and the
B&G Yacht Design team, the natural choice was to build one of their
designs ( In fact, during their trip they met 3 boats from their design
performing very well and praised endlessly by their crews ). Luis is
a Metallurgist engineer graduated by the same university that formed
Luis Gouveia and Astrid Barros, and many times they used to meet during
their student years.
Having an old passion for yacht design, to the point of starting the
Westlawn School of Yacht Design program some 20 years ago, Luis knew
enough about the design process to know he had to find a partner to
develop his first design.
So he decided to buy B&G YD new Multichine 36 SK design, and based
on it produce the boat of his dreams.
Supported by the design office team and starting from an excellent
and proven hull form, it was time to let loose the imagination and use
his skills for computer 3D modeling and knowledge of fabrication processes
to create the Kiribati 36.
In some aspects it is the exact opposite of the first Green Nomad,
being light and built of aluminum, open aft cockpit and modern hull
forms against a traditional center cockpit design. In others is just
an extension, with the same attention to detail in the systems and the
best equipment where it matters to ensure a trouble free voyaging experience.
Today the new Green Nomad’s trip has already started ( new hull,
same name and mission ). Luis and Marli are living on board since launch
day, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with an improvised interior.
Green Nomad in New Caledônia, 2003
Marli snorkeling in Huahine, French Polynesia
Life on board for now is not exactly as seen in the pictures above,
but slowly they are working to get there. Luis used the last months
to finish the technical drawings for the Kiribati 36 design, incorporating
lessons learned during the building of the first hull, and every now
and then a new board is added to the incipient interior furniture.
The first load of marine plywood for the definitive interior has just
arrived, and we expect to see the Green Nomad slowly turning into a
voyaging home. Marli is finishing the thermal insulation of the hull
and deck, and Luis has finished the drawings for the Kiribati 36 stock
plans, and for a time now they will be shipwrights and riggers and all
other trades in order to follow the call of the islands.
Marli glueing wood bits to receive the walll
lining....
…and fitting insulation sheets to the hull
When things start changing you will be able to follow up on this site.
We hope to send more conventional boat interior pictures soon!
Pantanal 25 is hard to be beaten in light
wind conditions.
Jorge Instaschi, mercanteveiculos@terra.com.br,
the Pantanal 25 class coordinator in Brazil, sent us the following e-mail
reporting the class latest news:
“We have another Pantanal 25 hull already constructed. The latest
one is Rotfahrt. She was extracted from the mould this week,
and her superstructure is already laminated.
What a gloss!!!. This second unit from the same mould is going to incorporate
all the improvements (sails, keel, deck layout, etc) we developed in
these last seven months of racing with DarkIce,
our first Pantanal 25 to take part in the racing course.
The new boat is basically intended to participate in the same events
as Dark Ice, the 2009 Santos Offshore Racing Championship. Dark Ice,
however has a more ambitious plans fot this year and we have a schedule
to send her to other important events in the Brazilian racing agenda.
For bad luck, (or would it be good luck?), the new boat most probably
will over-sail our dear Dark Ice, since she will be lighter,
thanks to a more accurate vacuum bagging technique applied in the second
boat lamination. We are counting on hard times for Dark Ice from now
on.
The lamination of Enigma II, the third Pantanal 25 to be
built from the same mould already started, and she will also be completed
straightaway. This new boat is being prepared to race under the “Brasilia
Rule”, a measuring formula adopted by the capital of the country’s
sailing fleet, in Paranoá Lake, the important water mirror in
Brazil’s capital. Taking into account Mr Ademir Micareta’s,
Enigma II’s owner, renowned sailing skills, this Pantanal
25 will most probably steal the show in the 2009/2010 racing seasons
at Lake Paranoá.
It is exciting coming to learn how the Pantanal Class will spread
to other sailing centres. We at Performance Pantanal 25 consider each
new hull of the class as if it was a son. We are glad to follow the
construction of each of them, doing our best towards producing a better
boat at each lamination, and we are prepared to give all the necessary
support to the new owners after launching, explaining to them all the
tricks Dark Ice already taught us during these seven months of intensive
sailing”.
Click on images
to enlarge them.
Photos: Pantanal 25 Rotfahrt construction at Cooper Marine
under the supervision of Performance Pantanal 25. Santos, state of Sao
Paulo, Brazil
***
Meanwhile the Pantanal 25 Dark Ice has been involved with
the season’s first regattas at the Santos Racing Fleet. She took
part in three races in a roll, all of them in light winds, the conditions
when the Pantanal 25 had already shown that she is the boat to be beaten.
Jorge Intaschi repports:
“This year we are trying new adjustments for Dark Ice sailing
trim which seem to be working beautifully. At the first regatta of the
new season, even though with a renovated crew, we won the race. Jones,
the helmsman making his debut at this function, was really impressed
with the quick acceleration of the boat at the least breadth of wind,
keeping its speed in almost no wind. Newton, another crew who came to
give us a hand, was absolutely infatuated with the boat’s performance.
The second race we had Dimas, our last season’s helmsman, when
we were the Santos Offshore Racing Championship winners, back to the
tiller, conducting Dark Ice with great skill one more time, and he did
not disappoint us. We opened an even more impressive leadership over
the other competitors, as if our boat was employing another sort of
propulsion.
Leonardo, one of our competitors, from the Ranger 26 “Rainha”,
later sent an e-mail to the Santos Offshore Racing Association forum,
telling his impressions about the races during this weekend:
To my surprise the races during this weekend turned up to be very pleasant.
Saturday we had to round Pascoal Mountain Island in a course where in
the past I seldom saw any puff of wind. This time, however, the
wind was quite constant. Straight from the start, Dark Ice jumped ahead
with such an astonishing speed that it looked like they were sailing
with a private wind, such was the difference between them and the other
boats. Notwithstanding, let’s face it, they were sailing much
faster then us all. They rounded the island far ahead the second boat,
and they only had to administrate the huge advantage from then on.
Sunday the wind was more typical of that area, just a lick of it!
Again Dark Ice seemed to be the only boat capable of sailing
in those conditions, and once more she jumped ahead of all other competitors.
The race ended up being cancelled, but once again Dark Ice was
far ahead of any boat…
Click on images
to enlarge them.
Photos of the Santos and Bertioga races. Note the distance
the other boats stayed behind.
Click here
to know more about the Pantanal 25 class
Samoa 28, the right size boat
Click on images
to enlarge them
You may want to own a boat that can take you in safety to any place
you fancy visiting someday. Perhaps you can’t afford buying it,
but you can build it as an amateur, provided you have a fixed monthly
income. Besides, if the model is good enough, being really safe when
sailing in bad weather and comfortable for a couple to live aboard for
long periods, than it is worth considering constructing it yourself.
Having in mind this possibility is very appealing. If you like the
hobby of boat building, the whole work involved in the construction
becomes an amusement, and instead of obtaining a loan which will
generate a long term debt, you make a saving investing your time and
your income in a durable good made with your own hands. If you still
take into account that the enterprise is tax free and does not include
somebody else profit, than you can be sure that deciding for a home
construction of a boat of proven quality is an excellent investment.
We bet that the adequate boat for an investment like this is the Samoa
28. A boat of this size is quickly built and is relatively cheap to
be equipped. On the other hand to live aboard for long periods you need
more than anything else that the boat affords adequate headroom. Besides,
you will require a comfortable saloon to be used as living room, and
this saloon must be a cozy place for entertaining your guests.
A well equipped and ergonomic galley is also essential, and the heads
with decent shower facilities is something you must have too. You also
need an owner’s cabin large enough to be called bedroom. Adding
to this a fore double berth for eventual guests, than you will have
the right size boat for your requirements. If the boat is a nice-looking,
modern design and is fast enough to provide daily runs above the one
hundred fifty miles mark, then this is the best choice you can afford.
Good news from the Pantanal 25 class arrived this week.
On the February, 7th was scheduled the prize award party for the 2008
Santos (the most important Brazilian port) Ocean Racing Championship.
Guess which boat was the most awarded that night?
If you bet it was the Pantanal 25 Dark Ice, the first boat of this
promising class to be launched in Brazil, you hit the nail on the head.
Yes, it was exactly Dark Ice, that very boat making her debut in the
racing scene and which performance was still to be seen, crewed by a
team of novices who had yet to discover how this new design behaved,
learning about her abilities along the racing course.
And it wasn’t little what was learned! They discovered that
her speed was simply fantastic in light winds, capable of overtaking
the whole local fleet, regardless of the size of the competitors.
When sailing in fresher winds, she still sailed fast, but in those
conditions water line length prevailed and Dark Ice didn’t manage
to beat the larger boats.
In short: even though she only began to participate in the series
already in its fourth race, she managed to win the championship one
race before the last one.
The 7th of February was a busy day for the owner and builder of Dark
Ice, Jorge Intaschi. Early in the morning he had an appointment with
a racing sailor from Brasilia who had come to Santos just to get to
know the Pantanal 25.
Before taking his guest out to sail, Jorge went with him to Coopermarine,
the manufacturing co-operative engaged in series producing the Pantanal
25. By sheer luck the factory was giving the finishing touches to a
motor yacht which would be delivered to Brasilia, the visitor’s
town, in the next few days, demonstrating to the potential client the
high standard of the factory workmanship.
In another coincidence, the first Coopermarine client for a Pantanal
25, the yachtsman from Sao Paulo Marcelino Magalhães was also
visiting the factory, bringing with him a very special red gel-coat
he had chosen to apply on his hull. All that fuss around the co-operative’s
new venture deeply impressed the Brasilia’s citizen, and he was
counting the minutes to go to the marina and finally getting to know
the boat he was so anxious to try.
A few days earlier the locally prestigious Brazilian magazine Revista
Náutica had tested Dark Ice for one of its regular evaluation
reports. That day the reporters suggested changing the appointment for
another occasion, with a more reliable wind, believing that with the
ghostly wind of the day the boat wouldn’t move. To their surprise,
however, they discovered that Dark Ice jumped ahead with incredible
acceleration at the lightest puff of wind, showing them that they needn’t
be worried about accomplishing the test.
This Saturday the wind conditions were no different: light puffy winds
from various directions.. Jorge Intaschi’s guest took the tiller
and stayed there for the next six hours, marveled with the speed of
the boat and her easiness to be controlled. It wasn’t surprising
that he confirmed the order for a Pantanal 25 to race in Paranoá
Lake, the sailing ground of the country’s capital.
When the test-drive finally satisfied Jorge’s guest, our host
invited him to participate in the prize awarding party for the 2008
Santos Ocean Racing Championship. This was the high-light of the Pantanal
25 class prestige that day. That almost unknown model stole the show,
and that evening she was the boat which won more prizes, stirring the
most varied gossips about her performance among the participants in
the event..
No wonder Jorge and his crew were very happy and the visitor deeply
impressed with such interest in the new design. To crown it all a yachtsman
from Niteroi, the Rio de Janeiro’s neighbour city, confirmed his
order for another Pantanal 25 to be built by Coopermarine. Jorge, perhaps
because of high adrenaline triggered by such sudden success, also announced
his intention in building Wave Runner, his next Pantanal 25.
This was the hot news direct from Sao Paulo, the most important Brazilian
state and nautical centre.
Meanwhile, our client Danial D’Angelo, from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
is begining the construction of a Pantanal 25, which should be ready
in six months time. As he is an experienced amateur boat builder, for
he was the first to finish the construction of a Samoa 28, of which
there are dozens in construction in various countries, there is little
doubt he will succeed in keeping his time-table. While all the others
are still building their Samoas 28, Daniel is enjoying his lovely Sirius,
cruising with his family around the River Plate, between Argentina and
Uruguay.
With boats being built in a dozen different countries, from Sweden
to Australia, and with the first ones already sailing, after Dark Ice’s
demonstration of competence in the racing field, we have all reasons
to believe that very soon the Pantanal 25 will become a popular international
class.
Dark Ice crew commemorating being champions
Line Honours Award for Dark Ice first to finish position
in the sixth race
Jorge Intaschi receiving the Santos Championship Trophy
Click on images
Click here
to know more about the Pantanal 25 Class
Multichine 28 Vagamundo – Baby on
board, part II
What a perfect playground!
The Multichine 28 is becoming each time more a really popular design
among cruising people who want to live aboard. As the class never stops
growing, we regularly receive reports from our clients about an experience
aboard one of these boats.
This time it was from the amateur builder Ricardo Costa Campos, who
told us about his trip from Vitória, Espirito Santo, to Ilha
Grande, on the south coast of Rio de Janeiro, where he now works as
instructor in a diving school, living aboard with his wife Ivana and
his toddler João.
Ricardo wrote us:
“I am still in Ilha Grande with Vagamundo and each day I
am more pleased with the boat.
From Vitória, Espirito Santo, to Angra do Reis, we had
the company of a friend, Bernardo, who is building one of your designs,
the MC 31. The trip began with a light wind from the northeast until
reaching Cape São Tomé, when we were caught by a cold
front having to beat from then on until Macaé, where we decided
to make a stop over waiting for the weather to settle. The Macaé
River bar entrance is quite difficult to negotiate, especially with
low tide, but thanks to the MC28 shallow draught we had no problem in
entering port and stayed there for a day and a half. When the
northeaster started to blow again we left bound for Ilha Grande in a
non-stop trip.
Baby on board
When reaching Anchor Island, near Buzios, the wind freshened reaching
30 knots. During these hours it is very good having a new boat
in which you can trust and the trip remained eventless until reaching
Ponta Negra. We were sailing at eight knots most of the time with
jus a little rag as foresail. From then on the wind subsided until
vanishing at the outer edge of Rasa Island, in front of Rio de Janeiro.
So we made use of our ‘bilge wind’ and went motoring up
to Barra da Tijuca, when there entered a southerly wind.
After rounding Marambaia Sandbar, sailing close-hauled, we reached
Ilha Grande Bay under sail.
After leaving Bernardo at the little village of Abraão, we went
to Jaconema Beach where I found a job as instructor in a diving school.
We left on a Monday from Vitória and arrived on a Friday afternoon
in Ilha Grande with a one anda half days stop over at Macaé.
It was a great maiden voyage!
Regards
Ricardo”
Vagamundo is a very well built Multichine 28 and the level of finishing
Ricardo managed to obtain in the interior joinery is superb. The photos
shown below give a good idea on how happy the Costa Campos family is
with their new life. João must be feeling an authentic little
dolphin by now.
Vagamundo’s family
Vagamundo in Ilha Grande
It seems like little João is enjoying the new
home
Vagamundo’s backyard, Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara
Bay
João and Ivana in the companionway hatch
João inspecting the instruments
Click on images
to enlarge them.
To now more about the Multichine 28 class, click
here
Samoa 28 Sirius second trip to Uruguay
Daniel D’Angelo
Sirius is a brand new Samoa 28 built by her owner, the Argentinean
geologist Daniel D’Angelo. Since he was the first to finish the
construction of one of these boats, we are following his early experiences
with the new boat with great interest. We like to reproduce in our site
the cruising stories our clients send us, especially if they describe
a place that might interest other builders in the same region, or simply
entertain our readers from different places. When the story reports
very happy days spent aboard, after all the hard work to build the boat
with his own hands, then the story acquires a new dimension, that of
fulfilling the purpose of such challenge.
“We were planning to take some short vacations aboard Sirius,
visiting Riachuelo, a very popular cruising destination for us Argentineans,
at the other side of the River Plate, in our neighboring country, Uruguay.
As it was the first time we were going to be aboard for so long,
we prepared the boat for her second adventure, planning with great care
all we should take with us for a pleasant eventless trip.
We intended to depart on Tuesday, the 6 of January, before dawn, leaving
our home port late in the evening. However, it took longer than we expected
to store all the provisions, filling the water tanks, lashing the auxiliary
dinghy (Siriusito ) on deck, besides tidying our personal belongings,
such as chairs, sun shade umbrella, toys and bicycles, so we only managed
to leave at eight o’clock in the morning. We had loaded the car
with so much stuff that we were deeply concerned on how would we store
all that gear aboard, but to our surprise, as if by a miracle, everything
was stored neatly and we had to remember by heart where we kept our
things. We didn’t use even one tenth of the storage space available.
Click on images
to enlarge them
In spite of having plotted the waypoint of Riachuelo’s entrance
mark in our GPS, we were a bit uneasy, since, even with the assistance
of binoculars, we couldn’t see that buoy.
The passage across the River Plate had been a very pleasant reach under
full canvas until approaching Uruguay, when, as usual in those waters,
the wind weakened, obliging us to start the engine not to get delayed
in entering port with daylight.
When at last we saw the entrance buoy, we sailed bow on, doused the
sails and entered the dredged narrow access channel protected by two
long stone breakwaters.
Click on images
to enlarge them
As we entered, we noticed that the place was crowded, and we could
count more than ninety other crafts, most of them sailboats. We
said hello to a couple of friends aboard another boat and went to the
harbour office wooden pier, to clear our papers. Next we went for a
stroll along the waterfront, getting acquainted with the town, where
we had never been before. Going back on board, we looked for a safe
place to anchor, closer to the Riachuelo mouth. (Riachulo means rivulet
in Spanish). We lashed Sirius bow cleat to a tree ashore, throwing two
anchors from the stern as kedges. After we finished the tying up procedure,
I installed our awning while my wife Carina prepared lunch.
Click on images
to enlarge them
Riachuelo is a place where you must have a dinghy. As we have
no inflatable, we took our solid dinghy Siriusito and a kayak
paddle, which made even more picturesque our presence in the place.
Our daughter Florence in the front seat, Carina at the stern, and me
paddling in the middle thwart, plus beach chairs, sun umbrella, toys
and bags, was a sight to be seen. Paddling to the outside end
of the breakwater and then returning along its other side to the coast,
we disembarked on a white sanded beach crowded with people, in a place
of rare beauty. There were many yachts anchored in front of where we
were, and behind us lay a forest of pine trees inviting us to sit under
their shades.
Click on images
to enlarge them
When I was finishing packing our gear in the dinghy to go back on board,
somebody approached me asking if the dinghy had been as difficult to
build as the twenty-eight footer. He took me by surprise. He had learned
from the Argentinean yachting magazine “Bienvenidos a Bordo”
which had just published an article about Sirius building saga.
After a light conversation about amateur boat building with my new acquaintance,
my mini-holidays actually began, playing with my daughter Flor on the
sand and swimming in the river, where the water is much clearer than
on our side of the stream. The day was very hot and the water
temperature agreeable, so we remained playing in the river for most
of the time.
It is only possible to reach Riachuelo beaches by sea, so the place
is absolutely safe.
You can leave all your belongings unassisted, since nobody will touch
them. Nowadays this is a privilege and just to save the trouble of bringing
back aboard all the gear we brought ashore, we left them there for the
night, having them next day ready to be used again.
Riachuelo has public bathrooms and showers to be used with coins, but
we had to go to the opposite place where we were to reach the
public showers, nothing really difficult if you have an outboard motor
for the dinghy, but rowing for two kilometers with a paddle is not very
inviting. As Sirius has a pressurized water system, I disconnected
the end of the hose that goes to the heads shower compartment, and joined
it to a garden hose, taking it to the cockpit. Our awning has curtains,
so we managed to afford the necessary privacy for a refreshing shower
aboard, without having to deal with the mess of filling the shower bilge
with rinsed water. Carina and Flor even had warm baths using our sun-shower
hoisted on the boom. In thirty minutes we were all clean and nice
smelling, ready for dinner, without having to wait in a long queue in
front of the land showers!!! During the first night we were hit
by a fierce ‘Pampeiro’ ( as the cold fronts are called in
our region) that left me very nervous, as our kedges started to drag,
since I hadn’t counted with winds from that direction. Held by
the bow only, Sirius started to hit the bottom and its topside was dangerously
getting too close to shore for comfort. Not managing to sleep with the
wind gusting in our stays, I decided to improve our situation, taking
the kedges farther away from the boat and farther apart from each other.
Back to Sirius, I waited until the anchors had dug into the
bottom mud, and began to take the boat out of the awkward situation.
Slowly we started to reach deeper water and we were no more touching
the ground. Now we could resume sleeping, however not before discovering
the reason for the strange noise we heard, as if our hull was being
scraped. Apparently fishes were feeding on the algae that were
beginning to grow in Sirius hull bottom, so we had to cope
with this serenade for the whole night.
Next morning dawned as though nothing had happened during the night.
A blue sky with hot sun presaged a marvelous beach day.
But before the pleasure, we dedicated some time in improving Sirius
situation, now crossing the kedges’ rodes to improve the angle
between them. Since this job took up some time to be accomplished and
the air temperature raised considerably, we decided to stay and have
lunch aboard, leaving the afternoon for going ashore, finishing up with
a walk to the pine forest, until reaching some dunes at the end of the
beach where we spent the previous morning., planning to return the next
day riding our bicycles. Back to Sirius, we had our bath ritual, followed
by dinner and, satisfied, the three of us jumped into bed.
For the first time we slept until late, and, after breakfast, laziness
prevailed, indulging us in staying aboard, and it was nearly noon when
we started to take any action. Not to make too ambitious plans
for the afternoon, we decided to go to the eastside beach, which for
us to reach was just jumping ashore and walking for about three hundred
metres. Our prize for this choice was having a whole beach all to ourselves.
There was absolutely no one there. We still haven’t discovered
why yachties didn’t use it. It is a long stretch of beach,
with compact sand, ideal for playing beach tennis. We decided
to walk along its extent and to swim on its end tip. When becoming
hungry we returned to the boat, not without trying to photograph a lizard
of considerable size that I had already seen the morning before, but
the brute ran away before I could take the photo.
Click on images
to enlarge them
That afternoon we gave up the intended bicycle ride to the dunes and
stayed on the beach with the rest of the cruising people. After
bathing, we decided to go till the mole to buy ice, as the cooler box
ice had melted. So, the three of us went aboard the Siriusito,
rowing for the two kilometers that separated us from the settlement,
and to make things worse, with the wind on the nose. Luckily I had Flor
singing on the bow seat, giving me strength to keep rowing. When
we finally arrived we left the ice block already paid and went walking
until reaching a restaurant called “Arenas”, seventeen blocks
away from our anchorage, where we ordered our plates ( via VHF). There
handiwork could be bought also, and there was a museum of strange articles,
such like pencils, key holders, aluminium tins, ash-trays , telephone
cards, perfume flasks , etc. some of these collections deserving to
belong to the Guinness book of records. We picked up our ice block on
the way back to the anchorage, and again to the Siriusito,
rowing to our floating home, this time with the wind in our favour.
This evening the meal was a fancy degustation of cheeses and sausages
bought at the “Arenas”, served with an excellent Malbec.
We slept like the Gods!
Click on images
to enlarge them
Early next day I carried the two bicycles in our tender and crossed
the beach to try to reach Colonia on a dirt track ( 12 km ). Once more
the Siriusito behaved marvelously well as a ferry. We decided
to peddle a little under an inclement sun, but now profiting from the
shade of the pine trees. We went on for some 4 km when Carina’s
bycicle had its sprocket chain broken. As we had some rope at
hand, I tried towing her with my bicycle until finding a gate shut with
a padlock.
Click on images
to enlarge them
Back to the beach and starving, I tried to reach the wooden pier with
the bicycle through a path opened by cows, but I didn’t manage,
since in some places the bush was so dense that it was impossible to
proceed.
That night we organized a game to be played by the kids from all the
boats, “the pirates’ boarding”, which consisted in
gathering the children dressed up as “pirates”, and using
their tenders, to board the boats involved in the dispute, to try to
find the “treasure”. Flor with an eye patch like all
“good” pirates must wear, went, together with more than
thirty other children, hunting the many treasures hidden in the boats.
Sirius wasn’t spared and her treasure of candies (marked
with an X) was looted with total success. So there was nearly
two hours between looting and the posterior division of the “earnings”,
finally returning each kid to his boat to let the adrenaline settle
down, while commenting about the “adventures”.
The last two days we left to visit Colonia and have good meals in a
restaurant. Because of this, I began to maneuver to say good by to Riachuelo
and to prepare to leave for Colonia. Nearly five miles separates
these two points, and, in lack of wind, we turned the Yanmar on, so
as not to arrive after midday and to profit from a more pleasurable
navigation, not having to endure the noon heat. When arriving at the
port of Colonia, we noticed it was also crowded, with just a couple
of places available. So, with the assistance of our dinghy, for our
peace of mind, we preferred to lash the boat to a mooring buoy, not
needing to perform complicated maneuvers to force our way to the pier.
We had lunch aboard and rested a little in the shade of our awning,
going ashore in the afternoon with our bicycles to peddle a bit through
the city until reaching Ferrando Beach, where we cooled ourselves with
a invigorating swim. Back to the beach we could contemplate a
gorgeous sunset, next going to have dinner in a local restaurant to
quench our craving to eat the things we didn’t have aboard.
Back to Sirius, eating ice creams for dessert, completely exhausted,
we went to bed, sleeping soon after.
Click on images
to enlarge them
I awoke early and went ashore to leave the clearance papers at the
harbor office, taking the opportunity to buy something for our last
breakfast aboard. We decided to walk around the city, and, killing
time until midday, we had lunch in Colonia, before leaving for La Plata,
departing at three P.M. We hoisted the mainsail while still tied
to the buoy and motor-sailed to outside the harbour. After rounding
the Santa Rita light house, we hoisted the jib and went in the direction
of La Plata. The wind was coming from the south at 15-20 knots
which, together with a flooding tide current, made us drift away from
our course, obliging, after two miles of sailing to change tacks to
get extra windward. After two miles in the new tack, we could already
point towards our destination, as far as we sailed close hauled.
Our average speed was 5,5 knots with the wind increasing in strength
steadily, with waves growing in size proportionally. Suddenly, out of
the blue came steaming towards us the fast running ferry, “Buquebus”,
on a collision course. Carina, scared to death, asked me to change course
and get out of the way, but I was certain that by her speed, she would
cross our bows at a sufficient distance not to put us in danger. So,
the ‘roaring monster” overtook us one hundred metres ahead,
a close enough shave to frighten us.
When we arrived at the entrance of the port there were a lot of
boats at anchor in our way, obliging us to negotiate our progress with
short tacks to avoid a collision. Then the river conditions deteriorated,
with huge short-spaced waves coming from all directions, and the wind
surpassing twenty five knots. Suddenly we saw an oil tanker
moving in an erratic course. Worse still, we didn’t know if this
giant had seen us, so we turned the motor on as an extra precaution.
After this new fright, there was just one other boat to avoid, and finally
we had free access to the canal. Still with a south wind, we were surfing
huge waves coming from astern, reaching eight knots when riding their
crests. As a farewell, and before entering the stone breakwater, a wave
caught Sirius sideways, giving the three of us a bath from
head to toe. We reported our safe arrival to the Argentinean port
authorities, as well as the Uruguayans, going safely to our mooring
at Martinoli boatyard, where we unloaded all the things
we had taken, and, after a kiss of gratitude for the days lived and
our return home in safety, we left Sirius until the next outing.”
Yacht designing is sometimes a very rewarding activity. We are not
meaning the material side of the business, which is like any other one,
but a more subjective of its aspects, that of once in a while being
presented with photos of just finished boats from our design, when we
find in each of them an authentic work of art.
This was the case this January when we received the photos taken by
Dorival Gimenes, after the completion of his home-built Samoa 34 Luthier,
an amateur construction accomplished in his home garden at
the city of Campinas, state of São Paulo, Brazil.
Dorival wrote us the following e-mail:
Luthier was launched on the 12th of December, 2008. The construction
took four and a half years of dedication and planning. Now my wife and
I can live aboard and fulfil our long distance cruising dreams we have
nurtured for so long. Our first month aboard wasn’t sufficient to set in order all
our stuffs (you can notice this in the photos), however we loved hearing
the opinions of some of our visitors. The most frequent praise was for the excellent headroom at the saloon
and the heads, followed by the opinion of our guest’s wives, who
loved Luthier’s galley. The aft cabin impressed favourably too,
for its spaciousness and the king-sized dimensions of the double-berth. We haven’t really tested the boat yet, but some interesting
data has already been obtained when sailing in light wind conditions:
sailing in a beam reach with four knots winds, our speed was three knots.
Then we started the engine, when the speed jumped to more than seven
knots, in spite of the boat being loaded with all our belongings and
with full tank capacity. I am in debt with you for a more conclusive report when we
sail with more wind and things more adequately settled aboard, including
a more precise tuning of the boat’s instruments. It isstill missing installing a bimini, an awning, curtains,
etc…a boat never gets really finished, isn’t that so? However, in spite of a simple joiner-work style, the construction
seems to be extremely sound. I am very pleased with the boat. Congratulations
for the design. Dorival Gimenes
Undoubtedly Dorival accomplished an extraordinary feat for an amateur
boat builder without previous experience. His boat is an authentic work
of a luthier. The navigation table is only missing the keys and strings
to become a grand piano. The galley requires a French chef to take full
advantage of such clean ambience. Well, you better see the photos below
and check for yourself.
Five years ago the Ukrainian by birth, citizen of Bahia at heart sailor
and engineer Aleixo Belov was completing sixty years.
“And now what?” was his existential question. Have
another child? It wasn’t the case – he already had
five, from two weddings. Build another company? This was also
out of the question – his successful engineering business had
already consolidated a solid reputation. Make another round the world
trip (the fourth)?… Why not? Belov had already completed
three round the world trips, always with the same boat, the very Spartan
thirty-six foot Três Marias, built in the backyard of
his house, in Salvador, Bahia. This time, however, the trip would
be aboard a new boat. At that moment was starting to be born Fraternidade
(Fraternity in Portuguese), the seventy foot steel yacht with which
he is now getting ready for his fourth circumnavigation.
In spite of being a firm addict of solo sailing (“it is much
easier to give orders to yourself than to others”, he explains),
this time, however, he will not be alone. His boat will be crewed, a
possibility he never considered when sailing in Três Marias.
Nevertheless, not to loose the old habit, before leaving for the next
long journey he would like to sail the new boat single-handed along
the Brazilian coast.
“It
is just to improve my intimacy with the new dwelling, he explains.
Next, he will adapt Fraternidade as a laboratory ship, inviting
scientists of the most varied specialties as crewmembers. Only
after a rigorous selection he will take the decision of who is going
with him, and this selection may take some time to be accomplished.
The new route hasn’t been decided yet, but he said he wants
to return to the best places he visited in earlier trips.
Belov was only six years old when he disembarked in Rio de Janeiro,
Brasil, coming from the distant Ukrania. So, he considers himself
a legitimate child of the new country. A charming character, he
is always surrounded by his Brazilian friends – most probably
citizens from Bahia. Why then this preference for sailing alone?
When I spend more than ten days at sea, I begin to feel a king of transcendence,
an immense internal peace invades my soul, and this sentiment is highest
when I am by myself, he explains. But, to finance his escapes
to distant seas he needed to earn money. He studied engineering
and created a company, now with two hundred employees and a stable financial
situation. But the business is a means, not the purpose.
So, he prepared his family to take control of the business during his
long absences when he was at sea. This was so, for example, in
1980, when he left on his first adventure, and again in 1986, when he
went around the world for the second time. Only on the third trip
(between September 2000 and March 2002 ) he allowed a rendezvous with
his children and wife in a stop over at Tahiti, during the New Year’s
Millenium Celebration. The experience of nearly one hundred thousand
miles navigated, also made Belov a writer. His first trip was
told in the book “Round the World in Solitary”. The second
rendered a trilogy, “Looking for the Orient”, “Looking
for Origins” and “On the Way Home”. The third
round the world voyage was narrated in his most recent work, with more
than 400 pages.
This time, the new trip with crew aboard should become a biographic
documentary about his achievements. The script is a task for his daughter,
Lara Belov, who has a college degree in cinema. The film will be at
least quite original, telling the story of a blue-eyed Baiano (as the
citizens from Bahia are called).
The
fourth trip is soon to be started! This time, Belov wants to give
the opportunity to others to get to know the world, and one of them
can be you.
In his new expedition, Aleixo Belov, decided to share his sailing
adventures with other people, in a kind of sailing school. For
this he will have a crew not only of sailors, but also biologists, anthropologists,
photographers, divers and film directors – all preferably young,
as the reason for this all is to “introduce” the world to
them. The name of the sailing boat – Fraternity – reflects
his state of mind. “It is a way of showing my desire to unite
people who fight for a world more ecologically balanced”, he says.
Do you want to embark also in this adventure? Then you are invited to
visit the site:
.w.w.aleixobelov.com.br and be a candidate for a place aboard.
Before you apply for a position, a warning; Belov usually has the habit
of saying to his visitors that aboard his boats, he is not only the
captain, but also sailor, the priest, judge and president. “Here,
I decide everything”, he says; pure baiano mockery, of course.
However, he admits, he doesn’t really know how he will react when
dealing with other people aboard. “To sail with crew is like courting
with other people watching you!” he reveals.
A Floating Home Powered by Sails
During
the last years Aleixo Belov spent more time ashore than at sea.
The reason for this radical change was his decision to build the new
boat nearly twice the size of Três Marias. The
new sailboat, baptized Fraternidade is twenty-one metres long,
with a 6,70m beam, two masts, 60 tons of pure steel ( carbon steel in
the hull, with deck and keel case built in stainless steel.). Now the
boat is ready to go anywhere, after five years since he ordered the
plans, and built by himself in his shipyard in Salvador, where Belov
lives when he is not sailing the wide world. The launching took
place just a few weeks ago and the boat is bringing a lot of attention
from the local yachting community.
As a matter of fact, before being finished, Fraternidade
design was already considered a turning point in the construction of
cruising sailboats in Brazil, considering its unheard thirteen ton pivoting
retractable keel. Thanks to a ratchet system developed for this keel,
it can stay firmly fixed in any position and can be released just pressing
a button. Thanks to this innovative system she can sail with the keel
retracted or lowered. Thanks to this device, her draught can vary between
1,80 m ( with the keel up ) to 4,80 metres (totally lowered ). This
versatility is also important because in yachts with movable ballast
there are two items that need to work perfectly, so that the project
will result in a successful craft: the rudder and the keel.
To operate of a retractable keel system, it is necessary a smaller depth
of the rudder when the boat is beached on purpose, or when sailing with
the keel raised in shallow waters. On the other hand, the rudder control
must be efficient even in the worst condition. In Fraternidade
the solution found was quite logic. Belov, together with the Studio
B & G Yacht Design, having the renowned physicist and high latitude
sailor Oleg Belly, himself an owner of a metallic yacht operating in
the charter business, as a consultant, inspired the whole solution for
this unique operation system.
Fraternidade
( Belov doesn´t hide from anybody that in the various times he
visited his friend’s yacht in Ushuaia, he came back with scribbles
that were kept for when he decided to build his new boat. It was then
that he opted for two fixed shallow rudders instead of just one, retractable.
Thanks to the generous size of the boat and the big internal space,
the keel trunk (which is located amidships) reaches as far as the deck
level, even though it doesn’t get in the way of the crew circulation
aboard – only creating two huge internal compartments, as though
they were independent quarters. In all, there are six cabins,
with two bunks each, three to portside and three to starboard. There
are bunks for twelve people, as one of Belov’s intentions is to
have plenty of company during his intended round the world trip.
His cabin, in the fore compartment, is the only one that has a door
and can be transformed into suite. Apart from this, there are
two more heads for the rest of the crew. The galley, which stays
to portside of the engine room, has plenty of lockers, ice-chest and
freezer, a deep sink integrated to a dish-draining rack, two two-burner
stoves, one working with propane and the other electric. The main
saloon (so big that it accommodates the entire crew and eventual guests
altogether, is placed in the stern – as we already mentioned,
since the keel trunk occupies a good part of the central area of the
boat. To provide natural ventilation to this large interior, there
is nothing less than 20 hatches.
Fraternidade is a very large yacht and is extremely
comfortable; a veritable mansion on the water.
The navigation station in the pilot-house, for example, looks as though
it is a ship’s flybridge, with plenty of chart lockers, a bunk
for the second crew on watch and much more. At the cockpit there
is no seat for the helmsman, so he has to stay awake. All electronic
instruments are duplicated, like radar, GPS plotter, automatic pilot
and computer. Even the auxiliary engine is duplicated: “Instead
of taking a lot of spare parts I take a whole engine ready for use as
back-up, resumes the good ‘baiano’.
Between the main saloon and the keel trunk, it is placed the engine
room, with two 125 hp engines, a generator and a central heater. The
water tank has the capacity for 8 000 litres and the fuel tank for not
less than 9 000 litres! Yes, nine thousand litres, there is need
for a long range of operation when you have so ambitious plans of staying
for years going round the world. There are also six solar panels,
and two wind generators, which are used to charge the battery banks.
They are nineteen! On deck, none of the nineteen winches are electric,
which demands extra work for the crew, it is true. Also, the steering
wheel, connected by stainless steel wires, is a bit heavy, but very
reliable for its simplicity. Since there is a second steering
wheel inside the pilot-house, and this is hydraulic, this second station
is very light to steer. The boat is ketch rigged, (the foremast is 22m
high) and two roller- reefing gears are installed for the fore sails.
The utmost effort was made to reduce sail handling, having in mind making
maneuvering easy, something very important for a yacht designed to sail
in high latitudes and inaccessible regions”.
Fraternidadehas all the ingredients to become a historic sailboat, not
only for the details of her construction, but for her endeavors. It
will represent well the spirit of the country, where new ideas
flourish with such vigor, commented Roberto Barros, from B & G Yacht
Design.
In spite of still smelling brand new, Fraternity has already
the profile of her owner. Here and there you can see sculptures
and oil paintings gathered by Belov during his three round the world
trips – he is a born buyer of small objects of art and goes stocking
them in his boat during the trips. Also he was moved by new challenges.
“What is the use of life if we don´t have the courage to
risk it?” he likes to say. Not by chance, he is packing his belongings
for his fourth round the world trip. And, this time, with a boat
as big as his experience.
Last December was the MC31 Kuara’s turn to be launched. This
time the artist who built her was not an amateur, but the renowned boat
builder Zilmar Franzen, from Franzen Yachts, established in Curitiba,
State of Parana, South Brazil. Her owner, the engineer Thadeu Eduardo
Miranda Santos, had visited our Multichine 28 Fiu during the 2006 Rio
de Janeiro Boat Show, when he became enchanted with the all windowed
style of the MC28 cabin and her flush and clean fore deck, but found
the twenty-eight foot yacht a bit tight for his requirements.
The tea pot was being served on Fiu’s table when Thadeu and
his wife Sueli arrived aboard, and the proverbial cake Eileen used to
offer our guests on those occasions was exhaling that nice smell typical
of a just baked recipe. They were new acquaintances to us; however that
evening was so agreeable that we kept chatting until late hours. Thadeu
accepted our advice to upgrade the boat to our next design in length,
the MC31. There was none of these boats in the marina then, so he couldn’t
estimate how much larger the model suggested was compared to ours. That
evening we agreed that our office would make the required alteration
of substituting the MC31 original wedged cabin trunk for one much in
the same style as the MC28, with windows all around its walls. The second
important topic of our conversation that evening was who we recommended
for the construction. We had been very impressed by the high standard
of quality of the Franzen brothers, from Curitiba. They had built already
a few other boats from our design, all of them superbly well finished.
Since our clients were one hundred per cent pleased with their option,
it wasn’t necessary much thinking to give this indication, more
yet considering that our guest resided in the same state of the federation.
With the plans and the alteration in hand, Thadeu went to Franzen boatyard,
signing the deal for the construction.
We were regularly receiving news from this MC31 as the work progressed,
especially because Thadeu created a site, www.veleirokuara.com.br
, to report the building, step by step, during the length of the construction.
The twenty-fourth of December we received this e-mail from Zilmar:
It is with great plesure that we communicate the launching
of The MC3’ Kuara. We are very pleased with the behavior of th
eboat, She is incredibly stable, very fast and her rudder is extremely
responsive and very light. The windowed cabin is being praised by everyone
who visits the boat.Kuará is stealing the show wherever she is
sailing and is receiving compliments for her design and performance. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with lots of
peace and happiness Best regards Zilmar Franzen and family..
Click on images to enlarge them
A poem for the cruising sailor
As Christmas approaches, poetic remembrances come to mind, especially
those reminding us of unforgettable cruising experiences.
To come, after months at sea, at rosy dawn,
Into the placid blue of some great bay,
Treading the quiet waters like a fawn,
Ere yet the morning haze has blown away,
A rose flushed figure, putting by the grey
And anchoring there before the city smoke
Rose, or the church bells rang, or men awoke.
And then in the first light to see grow clear,
The long expected haven, filled with strangers-
Alive with men and women; see and hear
Its clattering market and its money changers,
And watch the crinkled ocean blue with calm
Drowsing beneath the Trade, beneath the palm.
John Masefield, from Dauber
We chose twelve photos of boats from our design received during 2008
to illustrate this note:
JANUARY – Blue water kayak
Brasileirinho
Owner – Gerson Canton
Gerson Canton is preparing his rowing boat for an Atlantic crossing
single-handed, from Lisbon, Portugal, to Santos, Brazil, during
next year. His boat was built By Flab Boatyard, www.flab.com.br,
established in Campinas, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
FEBRUARY – MC45 cruising sailboat
Brava
Owner – Hugo S. Stoffel
Hugo built his boat at Metallic Boats, Triunfo, State of Rio Grande
do Sul, Brazil. www.metallicboats.com.br
He is preparing Brava to sail to the Caribbean
and Europe in the next future
MARCH – Cape Horn 35 Utopia
Owner – Marco Cianfflone Utopia
is an amateur construction. Marco accomplished a successful round
the world trip single-handed having survived the tsunami in Thailand
and many other fantastic experiences. This photo shows Utopia
in Vanuatu, South Pacific.
APRIL – MC34/36 Arakaé
Owner – Pedro Tremea Arakaéis an
amateur construction. Presently she is sailing in the Itaipu Lake,
between Brazil and Paraguay. Pedro intends to sail her to Buenos
Aires down the Parana River, and from there, sailing to Paranagua,
the same port from where Joshua Slocum began his trip to Massachussets,
U.S.A. aboard the Liberdade canoe.
MAY – Southern Voyager 28 Vida
Nova
Owner – Aristeu Cruz
This trawler was the first of her class to be concluded. Aristeu,
a luthier by trade, made a very good job as boat builder,
and the graffiti painting on the topsides reveals with eloquence
his state of mind in relation to his boat. Presently Vida
Nova is stationed in Paranagua and is being used for
short trips into the open sea, where she is proving to be a very
seaworthy craft.
JUNE – Samoa 34 Tanpopo
Owner – Rodrigo Ferrer Tanpopo
was built by Flab Boatyard, www.flab.com.br
and presently is being used by her owner as a charter boat, sailing
in the north coast of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Rodrigo intends to accomplish a long distance cruise with his boat,
the initial plan being a visit to Japan.
JULY – MC23 MK4 Sollazo
Owner – Flavio Traiano Sollazo is the best example of a MC23
MK4 amateur construction. Built by her owner, a total novice in
the art of boat building, during the weekends, this boat conquers
the heart of all those who visit her. Presently she is sailing
in offshore cruises between Rio de Janeiro and Ilha Grande Bay,
a lush and green tropical paradise located between the two major
Brazilian cities, Sao Paulo and Rio
AUGUST – Diamond 20 Matisse
Owner - Roberto Nonato Matisse is
a twenty foot high-speed runabout built in plywood sheathed
with fiberglass. She was made by Flab Boatyards, www.flab.com.br,
one of the best wooden boat builders in Brazil. His owner is using
her for fishing and gunk-holing excursions around Ubatuba, a town
in the north coast of Sao Paulo. However, since she is easily trailerable,
she can be transported to anywhere
SEPTEMBER – Pantanal 25 Zirrdeli
Owners – Orhan Sati & Bahattin Bedir Zirrdeli
was built by the two friends Orhan and Bahattin with
extreme competence. The boat is stationed in a marina in Marmaris
and her owners must be proud of their achievement, for having built
such a beautiful boat.
OCTOBER – MC28 Access
Owner – Flavio Bezerra
The class MC 28 is legendary as one of the most suited 28 foot
sailboats for long distance cruising. Her owner sailed Access
single-handed from Rio de Janeiro to the West Indies. Flavio
presently lives aboard his boat in Antigua, where he has a job
as project manager in the construction of a local airport. Dozens
of other MC28 builders follow with interest Access
adventures, since most of them have similar plans
for their boats.
NOVEMBER – Green Flash ORC33 Bicho
Grilo
Owner – João de Deus Assis
João de Deus Assis built his racing machine in Joinville,
State of Santa Catarina, South Brazil. Built in PVC foam sandwich,
we consider his boat the top of line in amateur boat building.
Presently João de Deus is testing his boat in the racing
course and is very pleased with the overall performance of his
yacht.
DECEMBER – Samoa 28 Sirius
Owner – Daniel D’Angelo
The Argentinean geologist Daniel D’Angelo built his boat completely
unassisted in his home garden, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As soon
as the boat was launched last October, Daniel began using her in
short cruises along the River Plate, including a trip to the neighbor
country Uruguay, at the other side of the river.
Merry Christmas and a and a happy new year is what B & G yacht
design, from Perth, Western Australia, and RBYD, from Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil wish you all who sail our boats or use to visit our site.
Cape Horn 40 latest hull to be turned upside.
We received an e-mail from Sergio Danilas, a chemical engineer and
amateur boat builder, resident in the State of Paraná, South
Brazil, informing us that his hull is already turned upside. Sergio
is one of our clients who impressed us most for his determination and
competence. He built this forty foot hull with a degree of perfection
comparable to the best professional standards, which confirms that amateur
construction, when done with determination and enthusiasm, has no limits,
either in size, or in degree of difficulty. He sent us the following
e-mail:
Dear friends from B & G Yacht Design
Last Saturday, 11/29/2008 I turned upside my Cape Horn 40, after
two years, ten months. The building progressed in a slow pace; it is
true, but bringing lots of enjoyment. Most of the work was done by me,
and only once in a while I call friends to assist me, as it was now
the case with the turning over operation. Various yacht owners friends
of mine, as well as the Franzen brothers, two renowned boat builders
in my region, came up to give me a hand. Without their experience and
good will, the whole operation would have been much more difficult and
risky.
The next stage it will be to laminate internally and to attach the structural
reinforcements, before beginning to build the house inside the canoe.
Best regards
Sergio Danilas
The Cape Horn 40 class is quite a rewarding design for us. The many
units under construction, or the few already sailing, are superbly well
built, and their owners are absolutely in a state of grace with their
boats. Aya, the pioneer of the class, has already sailed some thirty
thousand miles and participated in many long distance races, winning
or being very well placed in all these occasions.
The Cape Horn 40 is one of our most comfortable boats for living aboard
or to accomplish ambitious overseas cruising. Our typical client of
these boats is someone who wants to leave his former activities behind
and begin a new life aboard his yacht. It seems that the involvement
with the construction is a turning point in one’s life, and that
nothing is the same after the boat is concluded. For our talks with
Sergio, he is no exception, and we know he has great plans for the future
with his boat.
Sergio is building his hull in PVC foam sandwich. The sequence of photos
of the turning upside show how well planned the operation was.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Click here to know more about the Cape Horn 40 Class
Southern Voyager 28, the trawler with a different
style.
We are surprised with the increasing number of builders who are managing
to finish the construction of SV28 hulls. About every fortnight we are
receiving photos of a hull of this class ready to be turned upside,
or in the last stages of the planking process. It seems that each builder
gets much exited when he completes the fabrication of the moulded frames,
and from then on he can hardly hold his anxiety to see his hull planked.
We do not know if this is because the hull shape is so friendly with
the strips, or if it is because the hull lines are so charming.
We are accustomed to seeing trawler hulls resembling old motor yachts
with V-bottoms that can not plane and design styles capable of pleasing
the Great Gatsby and people of his generation. Round bilge displacement
hulls with waterlines more commonly seen in sailing yachts, like our
SV28, are practically non-existent. Perhaps that is why our builders
fall in love with their creations. However, we have no doubt that this
is just the beginning of a steady enthusiasm. Building the interior
is also exciting and when the trawler begins to resemble a small long
range expedition craft, from then on, the builder finds difficulty in
interrupting his work late in the evenings to go to sleep.
Well, let us show some photos of two of these constructions:
Southern Voyager 28 built by Karl Michael
Stegman
Southern Voyager 28 built in
Santos, Brazil, by Luis Ernesto Domingues.
Click on images
to enlarge them.
Click here to
know more about the Southern 28 plans
***
About the Southern Voyager 28
The Southern Voyager 28 is a compact trawler with many unique features
that distinguish her from other motor yachts of her size. Being a beamy
round bilge hull of displacement type with plenty of reserve buoyancy
on her extremities, and possessing a large tank capacity for her length,
the SV28 is characterized for her seaworthiness and a smooth passage
through the water, besides possessing an uncommon long range of operation.
This means she is a craft superbly suited for open sea navigation. On
the other hand, the volume of her interior affords a living space comparable
to much larger yachts.
Designed for amateur or professional construction, but having especially
in mind the do-it yourself builder, she is a sturdy mid-displacement
hull, and, if built according to the specifications stated in the plans
and following the recommendations contained in the building manual,
she will become a long lasting, low maintenance boat, capable of providing
a full life of enjoyable experiences.
The construction of the SV28 is simple and straightforward. It begins
with the fabrication of cold moulded frames, beams and a stem post on
a lamination table, something quite easy to be made, even by the most
inexperienced builder. Frames and beams coincide with stations, allowing
assembling them in rings, bulkhead type, which will constitute her transverse
structure, and will be a major part of the transverse interior layout.
This transverse structure, together with a laminated stem and a pre-fabricated
transom, are assembled on a building grid, over them being laid the
wooden strips that constitute the hull’s planking. When the hull
is completed, it is turned upside and her interior is built, using primarily
marine plywood for its construction. The superstructure is made with
plywood attached to the laminated beams of each station, and then sheathed
with a fibreglass lamination.
For those who like doing jobs with their own hands, especially those
who appreciate working with wood, nothing compares with the enjoyment
of building a boat specified for wood-epoxy construction. The work is
neither heavy nor particularly difficult, and the satisfaction obtained
from the conclusion of each step of the construction is priceless.
Click on images to enlarge them
Pantanal 25 Dark Ice wins her first races
The Pantanal 25 design was developed to be a trailerable cruiser/racer
with a good a speed potential. When Dark Ice, the first Pantanal 25
to be launched, began to participate on the 2008 Santos, (the largest
Brazilian port and the most important yachting centre in the whole country),
racing season, we knew the moment of truth had arrived.
After six months of hard work trying to produce a design that would
please people of both sexes from the most different places, and knowing
that we could not disappoint them with just an indifferent performance
in the racing course, imagine how anxious we were trying to guess how
fast the boat would go after the starting gun had fired.
We should have been more relaxed, however. Soon we were to receive
the first news confirming that the boat was up to our expectations.
The Pantanal 25 design had already caused bursts of enthusiasm among
many competition minded sailors. On the other hand, nobody wanted to
bet in the speed potential of a twenty-five footer provided with galley,
enclosed heads, two comfortable double berths and a nice dinette with
place for six persons to sit around a comfortable drop leaf table, before
a conclusive test on the racing course had been accomplished.
Jorge Intaschi, the builder of Dark Ice, has done a first class job
when constructing the boat. He followed faithfully the project specifications,
building the boat in foam sandwich, exactly as recommended in the design’s
scantlings. This was of utmost importance, since the true potential
of the boat would be jeopardized if its weight surpassed the theoretical
displacement.
Dark Ice, in spite of being hardly sailed yet and having to compete
for line honours, since she didn’t measure in any existing local
rule, was thrown into the arena with the difficult mission of proving
her merits against boats much larger than she is.
The first race was epic. Dark Ice crossed the starting line behind
the whole fleet. The wind was very light and she drifted among the other
yachts with the elegance of a dolphin. The course was windward-leeward,
and when beating to the windward mark, she passed all boats except a
thirty-four foot racing machine, crossing the line in second place overall.
Click on images
to enlarge them.
The second race Dark Ice participated was more exhilarating still.
As it already happened before, the crew still was adjusting the sail
trim when they heard the starting gun. The wind was light, so the loss
for a bad start was immaterial. Pointing harder and sailing faster than
any other boat in the race, they lead the race at the windward mark
and from there on never lost their leadership, arriving half a leg before
the second boat, a thirty-four footer. When overtaking the other boats,
Jorge threw them ice-cold water bottles, just as a friendly, or was
it a teasing, gesture.
When the race was over the other crews admitted that in light winds
Dark Ice was “the boat”, sailing faster and pointing harder
than anyone else.
The third and fourth races, one week after, the wind was stronger then,
and at that time, in spite of sailing very well and still pointing harder
than other yachts, water line length prevailed and the best Black Ice
managed to do was a second to arrive position. In short, Jorge Intaschi
is absolutely pleased with the performance of his boat and we thank
him for showing us that he made a good job as an amateur builder, as
well as an ocean racing skipper.
The Pantanal 25 class is already spread. The first to get into the
club was a client from New South Whales. Then came new builders from
the U.S., Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, Chile,
Spain, Greece and other countries. Now that there are some of them already
sailing, and as the Pantanal 25s is continually expanding in numbers,
we hope soon it becomes an international one design class. If you are
building a Pantanal 25, or finished the construction of one of them,
wanting to inform us about your experience, we are willing to transmit
to other members of the group.
Zirrdeli. A Pantanal 25 amateur construction
in Turkey
Click on images
to enlarge them
Click here
to know more about the Pantanal 25 Class
MC28 and MC34/36 sailing in heavy wind.
These two photos show Vagamundo, a Multichine 28, and Arakaé,
a Multichine 34/36, sailing in heavy wind conditions. The first boat
is sailing in the South Atlantic, while Arakaé crosses the fresh
waters of Itaipu lake, the larger artificial reservoir in the world,
placed in the Parana River, between Brazil and Paraguay.
These two boats, besides the fact that both are very well built, they
also arise a special curiosity on us for their owners intended cruising
plans, Vagamundo with an ambitious cruising schedule to sail abroad,
and Arakaé’s skipper intended voyage down the Parana River
until reaching the River Plate, and then sailing back to Brazil till
the port of Paranagua.
Arakaé is the first boat that large designed by us to be sailing
in that fresh water dam as large as an inland sea.
Click on images
to enlarge them.
Multichine 28 Vagamundo – Baby on
board
The MC28 class is steadily increasing its fame of being an excellent
cruising sailboat. Possessing an interior arrangement resembling a small
apartment, and being simple and easy to build, it is not by chance that
this design became so popular among the cruising enthusiasts. As the
boats of the class are being concluded, their owners, as soon as they
feel confident, leave for dauntless cruising adventure, in some cases
taking the whole family aboard.
After so much hard work and the many concealed dreams nurtured along
the duration of the building process, it is not surprising that sooner
than anyone could expect, there goes a just launched Multichine 28 for
its first serious cruising experience.
This happened dozens of times, and when we receive reports about such
trials, we are interested in knowing details, and if the experience
is exciting enough to influence our readers, we are interested
in publishing the story in our news. We never forget that we also passed
through the same process with our MC28 Fiu, when at first chance we
went out for a week’s cruise with our family, our two months old
granddaughter Juliana included.
The office at that time (2001) hadn’t moved to Perth, Western
Australia, yet, and still operated from Rio de Janeiro, having the whole
family working together during the week. However, on important occasions,
like the first cruise with our brand new MC28, it was commonsense that
the whole family had to participate in this unforgettable event together.
Ilha Grande is an island with steep forested hills just sixty miles
west of Rio. With plenty of wild life, natural water falls, secluded
beaches and gorgeous sceneries, this is such a privileged place for
being visited by sea that it is not difficult to guess that we chose
it as destination for Fiu’s first cruise.
Now we discovered that we were not the only ones with this same dream.
The recently launched MC28 Vagamundo, having as crew her builder Ricardo
Campos, his wife Ivana and their three months old baby João,
went in their inauguration cruise bound for nowhere else but the paradisiacal
Ilha Grande.
Vagamundo is an amateur construction. His builder, Ricardo, is a deep
water diver engaged in the offshore oil drilling industry, which is
presently booming in the east coast of Brazil. He built his boat in
Vitória, a town placed 280 nautical miles north of Rio de Janeiro.
is job required that he spent a long time in service, and then spending
another long stretch for decompressing, and then an equal long time
off, for recuperating. This allowed him to build his boat with the necessary
concentration to produce a first class work. But of course it was not
only the spare time available the reason for the high standard of his
construction. A natural inherited skill and a strong determination for
high standard workmanship are the best explanation for the good finishing
level of his construction.
Vagamundo is fitted with the best equipment available, including a
servo-pendulum wind steering gear from a traditional manufacturer, so,
in spite of Ricardo’s short-time experience, he felt confident
enough to take with him his three months old son. The round trip from
Vitória to Ilha Grande and back surpasses the seven hundred miles,
so, it required a well prepared boat for a maiden trip that long. But
this is exactly the strong point of the MC28. She inspires, with her
high stability, smooth passage through the seas, and a sensation of
cosiness in the interior of her cabin, such a confidence that owners
count on the boat’s ability to accomplish their intended challenges
as granted.
Fortunately up to now this has been the case with the MC28 fleet adventures,
Vagamundo’s trip to Ilha Grande being no exception. It is true
that the route had a large port to stop over on the way, Rio de Janeiro,
which Ricardo did not despise.
Look with care at the photos of the trip and see how beautifully finished
Vagamundo is and how happily the Campos family seem to have enjoyed
their cruise.
Vagamundo’s family
Vagamundo in Ilha Grande
It seems like little João is enjoying the new
home
Vagamundo’s backyard, Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara
Bay
João and Ivana in the companion hatch
João inspecting the instruments
Click on images
to enlarge them.
To now more about the Multichine 28 class, click
here.
Samoa 28, a new trend in amateur construction.
We have plenty of reasons to be glad to have produced the Samoa 28
plans for amateur construction. We have done this work before this horrible
economical crisis had shown its true dimension, but by then, in spite
of only a few sailors caring about the lack of sustainability of the
prevailing voracious consumption mentality, we already were foreseeing
that those production series boats intended to be discarded after being
used for just a couple of seasons of light usage, and then to be sold
in the second hand market for peanuts, wouldn’t fit the interest
of many prospective cruising sailors.
Our principle of designing long lasting, very strong and easy to be
maintained boats, intended for amateur construction, collides frontally
with the prevailing mentality of the tycoons of the boat industry. Unquestionably
a minority of the production boats are of very high quality, however
their prices are astronomical, while most of them vary from indifferent
standards of quality to rubbish.
Most models available are intended for being goods to be consumed by
impulse during visits to the latest boat shows. Some of these marvels
reach the absurd of putting a sofa-berth in one of the sides of the
saloon and a large-sized slim-lined TV monitor separating two seats
at the other side, despising completely the inevitable fall on top of
the TV screen when the boat will be sailing heeled to that side. Obviously
a boat like this is the one that suits best those busy weekend sailors
who have to earn the money to buy the next marvel exposed in next year’s
boat show. However, as the saying goes, money does not grow on trees,
and to sell the series produced consumption symbols it is required plenty
of easy credit. This unbalanced upside-down pyramid sooner or later
would have to collapse and, perhaps, what we are observing now is jus
the upper tip of the iceberg.
Our work is focused in the design of boats where creature comforts
desired by all of us are present in every aspect, but not at the cost
of gadgetry being the master while functionality of interior layout
and sailing aptitudes, especially in offshore passages, are neglected
to a second level of priority. We are also concerned in specifying materials
that will ensure great strength and durability to our boats.
Our other priority is designing boats easy to be built and which construction
is within the reach of the inexperienced amateur. We provide full size
patterns for the transverse moulds which give shape to the hull, either
printed on paper or in electronic file for CNC cutting, so there is
no risk of mistakes during the initial phase of the construction. Besides,
the plans are provided with a building manual, explaining, step by step,
the various phases of the construction till the final operations.
We feel we were lucky in our pursuit. The Samoa 28 is a good example
of this. Introduced just a few years ago, this class is beginning a
very promising career. We have units being built in fourteen different
countries and it is becoming evident now that all those who want to
go ahead, are managing to build their boats without difficulty. Now
that the first hull of the class is already sailing, it is also being
confirmed that the model is up to our expectations as an all around
excellent performer with an outstanding seaworthiness, especially when
sailing close hauled in heavy weather.
Last October, Sirius, the first Samoa 28 to be launched went for the
first trials in the River Plate, a sailing region renowned for its short,
steep seas and heavy winds. This boat, built by the geologist Daniel
D’Angelo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, had its construction followed
closely by our site news section, from its first steps in the construction
to a video of the launching party. (See also the site: http://ar.geocities.com/velerosirius/)
Frequently we receive news of other Samoa 28 constructions in various
phases of the building process. Recently we were particularly pleased
when receiving a series of pictures of another hull in the last stages
of planking. What impressed us most was the short time between the plans’
acquisition and the near conclusion of the hull planking. This is quite
rewarding for us. It is the clearest demonstration that having the moulds
full size patterns and the building manual in hand, amateurs are able
to reach the point where they feel they already have a boat. From there
on it is just a matter of persistence, and we know from experience that
having the hull finished, the amateur is assured that he can make the
rest.
A client of ours, Bernardo Sampaio, sent two photos of the interior
of his Samoa 28 in the last stages of construction. It is hard
to believe it is just a twenty-eight footer.
Multichine 28 despised, Fast-car overrated
and skipper pinpointed.
Our friend Roberto Roque, owner of MC28 Stella del Fioravante, sent
us this charge made by a cartoonist friend of his. Roberto, who lives
in Calgary, Alberta, equally praised among his friends his new nautical
acquisition and his favourite car, so it was no surprise the theme of
the charge. We believe, however, that when reaching deeper water, the
roles will be reversed, and Stella del Fioravante will use the car under
the keel to enhance her stability and take the trio in safety to the
intended haven.
The skipper is a good helmsman and we trust he will be able to deal
with any gale in his way and wish his boat takes a good care of him.
Makay, the flying MC28
During the late nineties, when B & G Yacht Design still operated
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we developed the Multichine 28 project having
in mind building one of these boats for ourselves. Being our office
a family business, we wanted a safe and comfortable boat for any sort
of cruising, so we could go sailing with the whole family, including
the grandchildren, or to go out single-handed, if the mood was for that
type of cruise.Racing was more or less out of the question, since a
very comfortable and spacious twenty-eight foot sailboat, short canvassed
as she was, with four hundred twenty litres fresh water tank capacity,
besides possessing an incomparable intrinsic robustness, wasn’t
exactly the ideal boat for competition against racing machines.
Roberto Barros, the founder of the office, and a friend of his, Roberto
Ceppas, decided to build two boats of this class together, in a shed
not far from the largest football stadium in the world, the Maracanã
Stadium. Since both had their formal activities, the building had to
be accomplished during the weekends, often a few blocks away from large
crowds of supporters of teams playing on those very Sundays, with all
the noise and fire-crackers associated with football national championship
great events.
Sometimes when a very important task in the construction was concluded
and the proud builders were appreciating their master piece, a huge
roar of acclamation made the soil tremble as if hit by an earthquake,
not exactly intending to praise the work done, but actually to commemorate
a goal which happened in the stadium. On other occasions the blimp airship
filming the match would point its zoom camera to the boats, instead
of showing the one hundred thousand supporters watching the twenty-two
grown up athletes pursuing a tiny wee ball in the soccer field.
In spite of being amateurs in boat construction and making most of
the construction with their own hands, the final quality of the two
boats became legendary among the local sailing community, and was reason
of great pride for both builders.
In the year 2000, the B & G owned Fiu was concluded, while Makay,
Roberto Ceppas boat, was launched a little earlier. Soon the fame of
the MC28 class, pushed by the success of the two boats and some other
very well built ones, which were already sailing, spread internationally,
and now there are almost two hundred of these boats being built or sailing
in eleven different countries.
Fiu sailed about six thousand miles during her first years, sometimes
with the Barros and Gouveia family together, other times single-handed
by Roberto Barros. For twice she went from Rio de Janeiro to the northeast
of Brazil, when she took part in the Recife to Fernando de Noronha race,
an exceptional concession to the unequivocal cruising profile of the
boat, since, more important than the race itself was the call at that
tropical paradise under the sponsorship of the race organization.
On that occasion, the great surprise was the performance of Fiu. She
crossed the line one boat behind the first of the class above the one
which she was competing, and eight hours before the second boat of her
class to arrive, completing the three hundred miles race in a little
more than forty-five hours with the average speed of 6.6 knots.
Meanwhile Roberto Ceppas and his wife Brita, can you believe, began
a charter business aboard their twenty-eight foot Makay, with such a
high standard service, that clients, local and foreigners, considered
their experiences unforgettable.
Then the winds that were blowing so favourably to these two boats changed
directions. Roberto Ceppas received an invitation to run the largest
charter company in Brazil as its general manager, while B & G Yacht
Design was changing address from Rio de Janeiro to Perth, Australia.
In the new job, for absolute lack of time to use his boat, Ceppas
decided to sell Makay, while Roberto Barros and his wife Eileen decided
to use Fiu as a means of transportation to take them to Perth. This
would be a leisure cruise of reminiscences of an earlier adventure,
when they sailed to Polynesia in a twenty-five foot boat with no inboard
engine. (You can read this story, Rio to Polynesia, downloading from
this site, front page left column.) When the boat was ready to start
the trip, Eileen was advised by her dermatologist to give up sailing.
The over-exposition to U.V. rays along her long cruising life left her
skin very sensitive to sun exposure, and once she couldn’t go,
Roberto Barros didn’t want to leave his companion behind, also
deciding to sell his boat.
Fiu was sold to the Brazilian/Canadian engineer Roberto Roque, who lives
in Calgary, Canada. However, at least for the time being, he preferred
to leave his boat, now called Stella del Fioravante, in Brazil, to use
her as a summer holidays resort. Even though being an inexperienced
sailor, soon after the acquisition he went sailing in a five hundred
miles trip, from Rio de Janeiro to Florianópolis, a city in South
Brazil, where he intends to stay, when in this country.
Makay was sold to Renato and Luciana, two newcomers to the sport of
sailing. Their first great adventure was to join the East Coast Cruising
Rally, which happens every two years, beginning in Rio, and ending up
at the start of the Recife to Fernando de Noronha Race, one of the most
popular sailing events in the South Atlantic.
During one stop-over at the city of Vitória, two hundred sixty
miles north of Rio, they joined a local race, the Soamar Regatta, which
they won. Against a large fleet, under very bad weather, they were one
of the two boats in their class that managed to finish the race, all
others abandoning.
The really important event, however, would be the Recife to Fernando
de Noronha. Again, in spite of being novices in the sport of racing,
they also won that race in their class. During the awarding party Makay
was being called the Flying MC28, for the astonishment of the entirely
inexperienced crew. They joined the returning race to the continent,
the so called Fernando de Noronha to Natal Race, which they also won,
in spite of once more having to endure very bad weather.
We from B & G Yacht Design are especially pleased with these results.
Our ultimate cruising sailboat winning races is quite unexpected, but
we reckon that the secret relies in her easy to handle characteristics,
assisted by smooth sailing lines.
For a boat intended for amateur construction and to be employed in long
distance cruising, knowing she also sails fast is a bonus for the large
community of MC28 owners.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Click here
to know more about the Multichine 28 class
Samoa 28 Sirius. A new star is born
Samoa 28 Sirius
The October, 5, 2008 at five o’clock p.m. was launched Sirius,
the first Samoa 28 to be concluded. Her owner Daniel D’Angelo,
the happiest of the amateur builders, invited his friends and admirers
who followed his three years construction saga to participate of the
launching party.
The invitation was extended to us, since a firm friendship between
Daniel and us was established during the time of the construction. However
the 1200 nautical miles that separates me, and the other 5500 between
Perth, where my partner Luis is living now, from Buenos Aires, prevented
us from turning up.
In spite of not being there, at five o’clock precisely I sent
him an e-mail with a message of congratulations for the great day and
wishing him good luck with the new boat. Of course I didn’t expect
any answer that night, since Daniel would probably be in the booze by
then and too tired to turn on his computer. Imagine my surprise when
I discovered an e-mail in my mail box with wonderful photos of Sirius,
as well as of the whole party. Our friend and salesman in Argentina,
Adrián Callejón, did not forget us and sent this message:
I’m glad to tell you this evening was the launching of Sirius.
The boat is simply fantaaastic! A work of art! I’m sending a few
photos of the event and a video showing the moment when the Champagne
bottle was broken. The truth is that I was touched at the occasion.
Congratulations, you have the first Samoa 28 on the water!
Monday I received the expected e-mail from Daniel, promising that soon
he would be sending a gallery of photos of the event. For his amazement
I informed him that my intelligence service had anticipated his move
and had already sent us excellent photos of the Sirius launching party.
Well, this is just the first part of the story. The other chapters
will follow soon. Roberto Barros.
Southern Voyager 28, a compact
live-aboard 28 foot trawler
People from the most different places are beginning to discover this
unique trawler that we designed entirely in accordance with our own
way of thinking, solemnly ignoring the opinion of many motorboat experts.
Our idea about trawlers always was designing miniature ships with hull
lines resembling the traditional whalers, for seaworthiness, and capable
of performing long distances cruises, with water and fuel supplies seldom
found in boats of same size. When we decided to design a displacement
type 28 foot trawler, we intended to provide her with enough creature
comfort for a couple to live aboard, with the possibility of receiving
up to four guests for short intervals. This boat should be capable of
professional usage, like small diving school business, or free-lance
charter. Of course, if an activity which can be performed on line via
web was the choice, enough space in its interior layout should be provided
for that purpose.
We designed this boat. There is already at least one of these
boats in operation and many others being constructed in the most varied
places. This is the surprising Southern Voyager 28. The interior layout
we show below say a lot about the comfort of her accommodations.
Interior layout of the Southern Voyager
28
The Southern 28 is a boat of the type living room, sleeping quarters,
bathroom and a compact galley, not forgetting the verandah on the aft
deck, the best place to relax after a stressing day spent at any office
illuminated by fluorescent lights. Besides, her range is unmatched by
practically all other trawlers of her size. With a 420l diesel tank
she is capable of cruising for one thousand miles without requiring
refueling. The only point that may not please some boaters is the fact
that her top speed is more compatible with sailing crafts. Those who
prefer high speed performance must definitivelly choose another hull
shape.
The first client to launch a SV28 was Aristeu Cruz, a Brazilian resident
at Curitiba, the capital of Parana State, a luttier by trade, (imagine
how well finished his boat became), however, as a boat builder he was
a totally inexperienced amateur.
He built his Vida Nova (new life in Portuguese) practically
unassisted in his house garden. When he launched Vida Dura
in the port town of Paranagua, he wrote us this eloquent e-mail:
Hi, folks It is with great pleasure that I inform you about the successful
launching of my SV28 Vida Nova. I have no words to express
the emotion I felt when seeing her floating in her own element, watching
her impressive hull shape, not mentioning her excellent stability and
a surprisingly higher speed than what I have been expecting. All this,
I assure you, is absolutely priceless. I am thankful to the B & G Yacht Design team for proportioning
this wonderful design, the Southern Voyager 28. Congratulation, and
I wish lots of success for you all. Aristeu Cruz.
We have already many other clients in the most varied places and of
the most different trades who chose the SV28 as their boats. One of
them is Heitor Frossard, a biologist who is building his boat in a town
in the interior of the sate of São Paulo, Brazil. He intends
to live aboard and perform surveys in his field of knowledge, travelling
along the Brazilian coast, using his boat as means of transportation.
Another client is the retired merchant navy officer Joaquim Vasconcelos
Ferreira. He is from Brasilia, the capital of the country, and instead
of constructing himself, he preferred to order his SV28 to Flab boatyard,
from Campinas, state of São Paulo. He intends to use his boat
as an apartment when he will be on vacations, keeping her in a marine
at Rio de Janeiro, and when using her, he expects to bring back some
of his good memoirs from the time he was the captain of a 250,000 tons
ship. There are so many other stories to tell…and how many others
will come, like probably will happen with our most recent client, a
yachtsman from Turkey.
Joaquim Vasconcelos Ferreira and his two sons watch with
great emotion the turning upside of their SV28 hull, being built
at Flab boatyard.
Click
here to know more about the Southern Voyager 28
Green Flash ORC 33 launched!
The new ORC33 rule was idealized on the box rule concept where maximum
and/or minimum values are set for some principal characteristics but
enough design freedom is given for the designers to draw the best boat
according their own studies and owner’s specifications. The result
is that the yachts designed to this rule are fast, sound and seaworthy,
retaining thereby good value beyond their competitive life as grand
prix racers.
Bicho Grilo was designed by our office and built by her owner, João
de Deus Assis, and has been attracting worldwide interest, as we can
see in these two recent articles published on the ORC website (http://www.orc.org)
that we reproduce below.
New ORC GP 33 boat launched (20/08/2008)
New ORC GP 33 class boat has been launched in Brazil. Joao de Deus
Assis Filho built her himself together with his son and workers at JS
Fiber Boat Yard. It is a Roberto Barros (B & G Yacht Design) project
with his office now in Perth, Australia. The boat is located in Joinville
- Santa Catarina State in south Brazil.
Interview
with Joao de Deus Assis, GP 33 owner and builder
Interest
in the GP 33’s is rapidly expanding across
the globe, with the completion of a Nelson/Marek
design for Japan and the latest launch announced
by Joao de Deus Assis in Brazil. Joao has
shared some thoughts with us on his new boat:
What are the specifications
of your boat (length, draft, beam, upwind
sail area, downwind sail area, displacement,
ballast)? My boat has the same specifications
of the ORC GP 33 Class, but as the construction
began in 2006, it has both a spinnaker pole
and also a bowsprit. My upwind sail area is
63 m2 and the asymmetric spinnaker has only
104 m2. I don’t have a scale to know the total
weight of the boat, but the construction was
with Divinicell and Epoxy resin from Barracuda.
The ballast and the keel weighs 1050 kg and
the max draft is 1.90 m.
What
materials were used to build the boat and
the spar? Divinicell, Epoxy and biaxial cloth
were used in the hull and aluminum in the
mast and boom. The rudder axle is of hard
aluminum with self aligning roller bearings
made by Nautos.
Why did you choose to build a GP 33? What
did you like about the box rule? My son and I like racing, but instead
of buying an old used boat, putting some good
sails on it and going racing, that boat would
always be an used boat with all the problems
of old boats. My son said to me: Why don't
you, with all the knowledge with Fiberglass
that you have, built your own boat? That was
the beginning… I started looking for a project
at the end of 2005. First, I contacted Alan
Andrews several times but had no answer. Mark
Mills was kind but the price was too expensive
for me. Volker has an IMS 29 that I like,
but the project was not complete. Then I knew
from a friend in my town that he had a project
in this new class (the ORC GP 33) from Roberto
Barros. I went to his house to learn about
and see this project. It was exactly what
I was looking for!
So in January 2006 I bought the design and
in May I started to built the boat. Exactly
2 years later the boat was launched to go
to my club to complete the installation of
the fin bulb, mast and all the fittings. The
Box Rule is very simple: all the boats are
similar and racing is boat-on-boat. I also
race IOM-International One Metre radio-controlled
yachts and it is also very competitive.
What
kind of sailing are you planning to do, and
where? I intend to measure in ORCi and
compete in Florianopolis - Santa Catarina
and in the next Rolex Ilhabela Race Week.
Have you found the boat to perform to your
expectations? Before the first trials I was very
nervous about the boat’s reactions, but I
was impressed after the first mile of sailing
with 10 kts of wind where we were making 6
kts of speed upwind and with only 3 persons
onboard. The reations of the boat are great.
The rudder is neutral and the response is
immediate.
Any other comments?
I advise every one who wants to built a sailboat
to think about seriously about the ORC GP
33.
To know more about the Green Flash ORC33, click
here!
Multichine 28 Access is becoming popular
in English Habour, Antigua
Our poor friend, the MC28 Class champion in complicated adventures,
Flavio Bezerra, just sent us an e-mail relating his latest accomplishments,
which made us very sorry for him. At any rate, what a hell of a hard
life must be staying on that distant Caribbean island, having to participate
in hot parties crowded with beautiful women every evening, besides being
compelled to dive every morning in pristine waters, and sailing to the
best swell spots in the West Indies, never mentioning having to endure
happy hours with so many other cruising mates from the four corners
of the world.
I can’t guess why there are so many other MC28 builders and owners
wanting to get acquainted with his latest news and being in a hurry
to follow his path and take their boats bound for that very place.
***
I hope this e-mail will help you from B & G Yacht Design to make
some business. This is my effort to compensate for the at least ten
potential clients that I had to put to run when they arrived alongside
my boat telling me that they could build the same boat faster and cheaper.
Life here hasn´t changed much since my last e-mail. I am working
as a production engineer for Andrade Gutierrez Engineering, which is
restoring the Antigua airport. I was quite lucky to obtain this job,
thanks to my MSC degree, since there was no other candidate with my
credentials as project manager. Only for that matter they allowed me
to work, obtaining this job, something otherwise denied to any foreigner.
And here a single tomato costs three dollars.
Every weekend I go sailing, or surfing, with friends. It is amazing
how many hidden surfing spots can only be reached by boat. I left an
Australian friend of mine dribbling, just telling him we went surfing
in Sand Island, one of the most “classic” swells in the
West Indies.
My anchoring procedure is always the same: sailing downwind, watching
the ground for coral heads, then I run to the mast step, open the halyard
stoppers, letting the sails fall down. Then I drop the anchor letting
the boat go until the hook holds. Next she chooses one tack and finally
points into the wind. Then I dive and attach a second anchor to the
first one with twenty metres of chain joining them.
Altogether, I use thirty-five metres of chain and two anchors in line,
one of them a 10kg CQR, which I borrowed from my fiend Ricardo, from
the yacht Pirata III, and my primary one, a 10kg Bruce. This technique
held in any circumstances up to now, and I hope it will always do.
I favour to anchor in less than five metres. I watch carefully the
wind, the reefs around, and if I don’t feel confident, I don’t
risk. The other day I was caught in a thunderstorm with fifty knots
winds. Another boat alongside us was hit by lightning. What a loss!
One of these days I’ll make a proper grounding on my boat, but
my kitty isn’t allowing any extra expenditure yet.
I haven´t saved enough money to buy an engine yet, therefore
I haven’t enough energy stored aboard to employ the auto-pilot.
However the makeshift self-steering system I improvised, lashing fore
sheets to the tiller, is working fine, even when running. By the way,
this boat is so good that she follows a straight course even without
rudder, as it was the case when I collided with a whale in the Fortaleza
to Saint Martin leg, and had to sail for five days with no rudder.
I am very pleased with the boat and everyone compliments me for the
design. It is evident, however, that a touch of woman care is missing
aboard…but perhaps I need a larger boat for that purpose, or
else I’ll have to find a small woman, of proper size to fit the
MC28, with above all other virtues, to be provided with very, very good
humour.
My dinghy (the Caravela 1.7) was thoroughly restored. I made a complete
face-lift on it, with repairs in its pierced bottom and on the fiberglass
sheathing. Now I need to fit the dinghy with its sail rig, so I can
participate in the dinghy competition, during the Antigua Sailing Week.
The last time I raced aboard Aschanti, a one hundred-twenty foot mega-yacht.
What a crew!!! Here in English Harbour there are many beautiful women
who love sailing, but you must be in good shape, if you want to keep
up with their pace.
I can’t deny I am home-sick of my dear Rio de Janeiro. Better
place you will not find. How many friends I made during the time I was
building Access, when I participated of interminable chats in those
building sheds in the Club Saint Cristobal, the heart of amateur construction
in Rio.
At that time I couldn’t reckon they were such good friends,if
it wasn´t for the so many difficulties an amateur builder has
to endure, especially if he is having to live in the workshop, building
his dream in a day by day schedule.
I miss Ipanema Beach, the competitions with my rowing mates in the
Polynesian canoe, the sail rallies with the other boaters from Marina
da Glória. I badly miss surfing in Prainha and Macumba Beach!!!
I will be returning, for sure! Soon I’ll be returning! I only
don’t know when and by which route. So I’ll have to hide
my melancholy. It’s much like having a penalty to be kicked by
the Brazilian team in a world cup final. I want to win the championship,
finding the best surfing points the world over, gunkholing in the most
secluded places, and above all, making many, many friends, indeed, since
after all, it is friendships what remain forever.
I send you and your family, now living in Perth, a bib hug for you
all, and my thanks for all the patience and good will you had with me.
Flavio Bezerra
Antigua, West Indies.
E-mail: flavioab@hotmail.com
Click on images to enlarge them
Click here
to know more about the Multichine 28 class
Kiribati 36, our next stock plan
Soon we will be introducing a very exciting new design, the Kiribati
36, an aluminium sail boat with a series of innovative ideas, which
we are expecting to excite the imagination of many blue-water cruising
sailors.
This new design has all the ingredients to make a successful career.
The story of the Kiribati 36 began when our friend, now our collaborator,
Luis Manuel Pinho, a long time cruising sailor, accepted our invitation
to produce this design in a joint venture.
Luis Manuel was born in Mozambique. When that country obtained its
independence, his family immigrated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where
Luis Manuel obtained a degree in engineering. Soon after his graduation
he built a steel boat with which, together with his just married wife
Marli, sailed to the South Pacific, where they stayed for many years.
They established their base in Cairns, Queensland, and from there they
visited many remote islands in the South Pacific. After four years of
residence, Luis Manuel and his wife obtained the Australian citizenship,
something important for us, since we also transferred our office to
Perth, Western Australia.
Luis Manuel sold his boat in Australia and came back to Brazil to build
his new yacht, since this was the country where he was acquainted with
building facilities, based in his previous experience. Luis Manuel and
his wife intend to sail back to Australia with the new boat, where they
will resume to their former cruising life-stile, and he intends to remain
as our collaborator in future projects.
The deal we made with him was beneficial for both sides. We used the
Multichine 36SK as a base plan for the new design and he introduced
the modifications he intended to accomplish, which we believe are shared
by many other cruising sailors. The result of all his work is the Kiribati
36, which we are proud to advertise.
If you are interested in the Kiribati 36 and want to know more about
this design, please send us an e-mail to info@yachtdesign.com.auor
to Luis Manuel at the e-mail luisdesenhos@gmail.com.
Kiribati 36 Aluminium Swing Keel Yacht
Length Overall – 11.03m
Beam – 3.84m
Draft Keel Up – 0.72m
Draft Keel Down – 2.26m
Displacement Light – 7250 Kg (includes rig, winches, interior,
deck hardware)
Displacement Loaded – 8750 kg (Full tanks, provisions, spares,
dinghy, outboard etc)
Ballast – Fixed 1000 Kg
Swing Keel 1300 Kg
Water Capacity – 600 l
Fuel Capacity – 420 l
The main goals that the Kiribati 36 has to meet are:
- To be a safe world passage maker with emphasis on tropical sailing.
A shallow draught is desired to amplify the cruising ground possibilities
and enhance the safety of anchoring in otherwise inaccessible shelters.
- To be a permanent home for a couple with good view to the outside.
- To be cost effective to be built by amateurs or by professional
yards.
- To have simple and reliable systems in order to minimize the possibilities
of gear failure at sea and to keep the running and maintenance costs
to a minimum.
- To be a reasonable performer in light airs and be capable of motoring
comfortably at 5 to 6 knots, with a 1000 Nautical Miles range under
power.
- To see how these goals are met with the minimum possible compromise
by the Kiribati 36, we begin by its size.
11 m or 36ft LOA gives you enough carrying capability and can take
its share of rough weather and the inertia for the proposed displacement
still gives you gentle enough accelerations while this size still belongs
to the small boat club in comparison to the current cruising fleet.
While 32 ft or 10 m can still be enough, the savings in cost will be
not all that great, as a simply conceived 11m can be cheaper than an
overbuilt, over-equipped 10 m long boat, and the trade off can be disadvantageous
when you consider the smaller payload. You can benefit of cheaper places
if you can carry more stocks and fuel.
Next we come to the building method, which is based on a pre-cut kit
of all aluminium parts, numbered and identified in easy to read perspective
drawings.
With this kit and drawings, and with the building manual supplied,
an amateur with access to a shed and an aluminium welder (we recommend
that an experienced welding professional be hired) can confidently put
the boat together.
The hull plates are designed to be nearly 100% developable in a plane,
so no great forces are required to bend them to shape and a minimum
of stress and deformation is introduced in the material. This is assured
by using dedicated software ( Prosurf 3, Rhinoceros ) that calculates
and shows graphically the amount of curvature on the surface.
This hull is intrinsically very strong with the added advantage of
the inherent dryness of properly built metal hulls. The 5086/5083 aluminium
employed should ensure decades of trouble free cruising, as far as the
hull is concerned.
The choice of twin rudders behind skegs with tiller steering is logical
since you want to keep systems simple and still have low draught and
good steering control. The twin rudders are 10cm deeper than the lowest
part of the hull with the swing keel up, providing a stable 3 point
base when sitting on the ground.
The option for a swing keel is dictated by the shallow draught requirement.
With the keel up the Kiribati 36 draws scant 79 centimetres (2 ‘
7” ) fully loaded. The ballast is divided between internal ballast
and the ballasted swing keel. There is a very simple and low cost system
to raise the keel, using an ordinary winch and a 4 to 1 reduction, pulling
two 12mm spectra ropes.
The rig is a single spreader cutter in order to keep it simple and
provide for enough sail area combinations for safe offshore passages.
A mast height of 13 m and a sail area of 57 m³ to give a Sail area/Displacement
ratio of 14.3 should power the Kiribati 36 well enough in the prevailing
conditions of the trade wind belt. Slab reefing and mainsail handling
by the mast is preferred to minimize line runs and keep chafe and costs
low. A well protected working area around the mast is provided by back-rests
on each side.
The outboard profile is dictated by the requirements of a good view
to the outside and an easy transition from cockpit to cabin. A raised
floor area just below from the main companionway hatch will provide
a good view from the galley and navigation station area. Six 32x24cm
and two 50x50cm hatches are installed around this cabin
area, enabling integration to the exterior surroundings and plenty
of ventilation, while being safe and strong.
The Interior
The interior layout is very open and unobstructed with only the aft cabin
and heads areas separated.
A raised floor central section accommodates
the navigation station, where a seated navigator can look out through
the hatches, and the cook has full view of the outside, providing for
a comfortable and ventilated working environment.
Forward and one step below there is a dinette with ample sitting room
for six persons and a forward double berth.
The heads is located to starboard, aft of the navigation station, and
behind it is the technical area, concentrating all through-hulls, except
the main raw water intake, which is located on the keel trunk wall,
being this the only underwater connection on the boat. A convenient
space for electric equipment, pumps and all diesel fuel management is
also located here.
About the Multichine 31
The Multichine 31 is a design that should deserve a special recognition
among our line of stock plans. Intended for amateur construction, this
cruising sailboat is unique in elegance of her lines and comfort of
her interior layout.
This recognition took a little longer to happen than we expected, probably
because the first boats of the class which constructions were concluded,
their owners were in no hurry to complete their work, preferring to
dedicate their time in improving the standard of quality of the many
details of their workmanship. But now that some of these boats are already
sailing in different nautical centres, the merits of the project are
becoming evident.
Our builders, whose special cares are mentioned above, are very proud
of their accomplishments and some of them are willing to share their
experiences with other amateurs. Two of them published home pages with
links to our web-site. The latest addition is: www.veleirotaga.blogspot.com.
The Multichine 31 referred in this site is being built by the retired
navy officer Álvaro Pereira Guimarães. He is constructing
his yacht in an amateur building centre located at the city of Rio de
Janeiro, practically unassisted. His work, for a layman in joinery work
is worth a high commend for its level of finishing. Taga, as his boat
will be called, will become a reference in craftsmanship among amateurs,
we believe. The captions shown below are witness of this perfectionism.
Click on images
to enlarge them
***
Another very well built Multichine 31 is Santa Clara. Tom Murray, her
owner, a first time amateur builder, launched her a few months ago.
Santa Clara is producing a very favorable impression among sailors in
the marina where she stays, and the unanimous opinion is that Tom accomplished
a first class job. He built his boat in his home garden located on the
beautiful hills close to the city of Rio de Janeiro, surrounded by the
Atlantic Rain Forest. With such gorgeous landscape, and that wonderful
swimming pool a step aside the building grid, we wonder how he got the
necessary willing force to work so well.
The MC31 class has many boats under construction in different countries
and the latest acquisition of the plans was from a couple in Sweden
who intend to start its construction straightaway. We are willing to
promote the MC31 to the level it deserves, and we will keep informing
about the latest news of the class regularly.
Aloha, the other boat shown on the photos below is a MC31 built by
another amateur at Porto Alegre, a city located one hundred fifty miles
away from the sea in the Brazilian Pampas. On these photos she is sailing
in the estuary of Guaiba River, which flows to a three hundred kilometers
long fresh water lake connected to the sea.
Click on images
to enlarge them
Click on images
to enlarge them
Click here if
you want to know more about the Multichine 31 class
***
After reading this article, our friend Tom Murray sent us a gratefulness
e-mail with a nice photo of Santa Clara under sail outside the Rio de
Janeiro Bay. His boat looks so large that it is difficult to realize
she is thirty-one foot L.O.A. only:
Dear friends.
I was very pleased reading your report citing my MC31 Santa Clara, and
also a bit embarrassed for not communicating about her launching. I
am absolutely happy with her performance, the boat is simply marvelous.
She sails beautifully, is extremely well balanced, you may leave the
tiller and she keeps sailing in the same course. She is a joy to sail
and easy to handle in any wind condition. She is also very fast, besides
the fact of transmitting a feeling of comfort and confidence. In short,
she has all the virtues you advertised about the plans. I have only
to thank you for designing other people’s dreams and to give after
sales assistance whenever required.
Best regards
Tom Murray
Polar 65, our small expedition sailing
ship
The Polar 65 is an amazing cruising sailboat. This powerful “go
anywhere cruising machine” soon will be giving reasons for many
comments among the sailing community. After all there are not many other
forty-five ton displacement boats capable of grounding on a beach, just
requiring the next tide to be floating again. Her impressive swing keel,
when extended downside, dwarfs a man standing at its side (see photo
below), but this swing-keel with its sophisticated hydrodynamic shape
is the secret for having sufficient lift to allow her to beat to windward,
even when sailing in gale conditions.
Being provided with two engines and two rudders, the Polar 65 is able
to manoeuvre in tight anchorages with great facility dispensing a complicate
bow thruster installation. On the other hand her high degree of positive
stability makes her comfortable even when sailing in very rough conditions.
These characteristics together with an extremely spacious interior arrangement
are what make her the superb expedition boat she is.
The Ukrainian civil engineer Aleixo Belov was our first client to build
a Polar 65. Being an outstanding sailor, just a few years after his
graduation, he built a thirty-six foot fibreglass sailboat with which
he accomplished a round the world trip, single-handed. Back home he
wrote a book called “In search of the Orient” , where he
relates his adventures, including an acquaintance with famous female
navigator Tania Aebi, and a visit to his home-country, Ukrainia, then
part of USSR. With that very boat he went sailing around the world two
times more, always in solitary, resulting from these experiences two
other bestsellers. Now he does not want to sail alone anymore, and decided
to dedicate his Polar 65 in the mission of taking young people as crew,
using his boat as a sailing school for less favoured youth.
His boat is practically ready to be launched, and will be sailing before
the end of this year.
Owning a shipyard at the city of Salvador, State of Bahia, Brazil,
he found no difficulty in building his Fraternidade (Fraternity in Portuguese)
with his own team of welders. We visited his plant a few months ago
and took the photos shown below:
Click on images
to enlarge them
***
Meanwhile another Polar 65 hull is under construction at Metallic Boats,
a boatyard established in Triunfo, R.S., Brazil. The second vessel of
this class, Mar de Cristal, soon will have the hull turned into its
upside position. José Antonio Moeller, the boatyard owner, is
very enthusiastic about the potential of this design as the perfect
charter boat to operate in high latitudes, and having in mind to be
prepared to produce these boats in series, he provided his installations
for CNC cut assemblage, which will represent an important saving in
time of construction.
Moeller, a long time client of ours, already produced a collection
of boats from our design, and for the quality of his work, we are foreseeing
a very successful career for his latest investment.
Our most audacious Multichine 28 owner-builder, Flavio Bezerra, who
sailed from Rio de Janeiro to the West Indies single-handed without
auxiliary engine and with no means to recharge his batteries ( rolling
the page, see the article: “Multichine 28 Access reaches the Caribbean”),
sent us this July, 2008, an e-mail reporting that at the moment he is
at English Harbour, Antigua, and that all is fine with him:
Presently I’m living in Antigua, where I found a
Job in Andrade Gutierrez, an engineering company which is reconstructing
the local airport. As you know, my friends, I’m a workaddict and
love to be doing things. My dear little sailboat Access is anchored in English Harbour Bay.
The area around the rudder, where I had to perform a local repair, is
still requiring to be painted, but I’m still saving money to invest
in the boat. Antifouling, a seven thousand bucks new diesel engine,
and other investments are all in my check-list, and I haven’t
the slightest idea how can I save that much. I reckon I’ll have
to rely on my sails for a while yet. The question is if I am able to
sail to the Pacific without an auxiliary engine. Perhaps I can manage,
who knows? Returning home is out of the question, at least until next
summer, so, I suppose I’m staying here for the time being. The waters of the bay where I’m living are very clean and
I dive every early morning before going to work. I use to swim across
the bay and after running along a local beach, I return swimming one
more time. It is how I fight against my incipient belly. Soon I’ll send a video reporting my hard life here. Regards to you all. Flavio
Click on images
to enlarge them
***
Another client of ours who built a Multichine 28 unassisted, the restaurateur
Giovani Dalgrande, is very pleased with the conclusion of his work.
He built his boat at the city of Florianopolis, state of Santa Catarina,
Brazil, and a few days ago sent us an e-mail with some beautiful photos
of his Kyriri-ete attached: It is a great pleasure to inform you that I concluded the construction
of my Multichine 28 Kyriri-ete which I started to build a “few
days ago”. The meaning of the boat’s name in the Indian
language Tupi-Guarani is tranquility, something all of us are badly
in need. I would like to thank you for the nice plans that you produced,
which allowed me to accomplishing my dreams through this enterprise.
It was very rewarding all the time I had been involved with this affair
Click on images
to enlarge them
Kiribati 36 – A new design for
construction with CNC cut aluminium plates.
It is well advanced the hull of the first Kiribati 36, a design adapted
from our Multichine 36 SK and first of our line to be nearly 100% pre-cut
by CNC. The hull is being built by Metallic Boats yard, in Triunfo,
RS, Brazil
Main diferences from the Multichine 36 SK, which can also be built
in aluminium in addition to steel, are changes to the deck and cabin,
to allow a better panoramic view from inside the cabin, item that our
clients, Luis Manuel and Marli, consider a priority for a long range
voyaging yacht, and modifications to the systems in the direction of
simplicity, low maintenance and low cost, as tiller steering instead
of wheel, and new position of the rudders, now placed behind the transom.
The anchor locker was brought aft and enlarged and an extra watertight
bulkhead inserted at the aft end, creating a huge lazzarette isolated
from the accommodation area.
The couple chose this design to replace their "Green Nomad",
a Van de Stadt 36 built in steel by them, in which they cruised for
10 years, from Rio de Janeiro to the Pacific Ocean, passing through
Panama and staying several years between Australia and the South West
Pacific island groups. Between these, they were enchanted by Kiribati
, reason why they chose to name their version of the design Kiribati
36.
Being a swing keel design, the Kiribati 36 will allow them to return
and explore the Pacific Ocean with more freedom of choice and options
than before, when they had to play the tides in order to get into cyclone
holes and other anchorages.
The hull is in 5083 aluminium alloy, being 10mm thick in the bottom
and 8mm on the sides. The hull panels were cut by plasma, while the
remaining of the structure, deck, keel and rudders were cut by water
jet. All was pre-cut, ensuring a fast and very precise assemblage. The
modifications and the development of the pre-cut kit were done by Luis
Manuel Pinho in close collaboration with our office, which shall launch
an official version of the design soon.
We have reported the conclusion of construction and turning over parties
promoted by Flab Boatyard in various occasions since this excellent
custom yard began its activities.
Now the boat in question is a Southern Voyager 28 trawler, which hull
was turned upside last June 28. As usual, the quality of the construction
is striking, and the retired Merchant Navy officer Joaquim Vasconcelos
Ferreira, the happy owner, sported a smile from ear to ear for the duration
of the party.
The sequence of photos sent us by Flab Boatyard owner, Flavio Rodrigues
are eloquent witnesses of the beauty of the hull, and those who love
wooden construction will understand the reason for Joaquim’s pride
and happiness.
Flavio sent us an e-mail where he expressed
his feelings about the event:
To build custom boats is a very rewarding activity, and building
boats designed by B & G Yacht Design is an honour, and yet, obtaining
such a group of friends among my clients, suppliers and supporters of
my boatyard is a privilege that few can boast to have acquired in a
professional career.
Joaquim’s boat turning over party was another occasion not to
be forgotten. We all missed your presence but other opportunities to
have you with us for sure will come.
Our love to you, especially to Eileen, the mother of all B & G Yacht
Design boats.
Flavio
The SV28 is a wooden power boat of displacement type. Her plans are
intended for amateur or custom construction. The building method employed
in the construction of the SV28 is strip planking laid over cold moulded
laminated frames for the hull, and marine plywood sheathed with fibreglass
for the superstructure. The interior is made with plywood. All parts
of the construction are bonded with epoxy glue, resulting in a monoblock
structure of great strength and durability.
Voyaging through the web we found a site, www.craftacraft.com
with an interesting comments about our SV28 trawler:
‘A designer that is currently moving from Rio de Janeiro
to Perth, Australia, Roberto Barros has some interesting designs to
examine, mostly sail craft, but a few power boats. Designs are available in “ply-glass, steel or aluminium”.
Most of the power yachts have a sailboat hull look to them (fairly beamy).
Mr. Barros has some interesting interior designs, again seeming to borrow
from some of the sailing designs. Getting berths for six in a 28’ boat sounds tight, but by
stacking them “bunk” style with the uppers designed to fold
to become seat backs it seems that he had managed it…’
The person who wrote the text above is a good observer. He is precise
in stating that some of our trawler designs have a sailboat hull look.
The reason for that is quite simple: our trawlers are of displacement
type hulls and their smooth waterlines do not differ much from sailboat
waterlines. The semi-planing concept of trawler hulls is neither fish
nor fowl. Trawlers advertised as semi-planing, for obvious reasons,
are never shown travelling at full throttle in their advertisements.
The Southern Voyager 28, with its large tank capacity, is capable of
travelling for long distances without needing to refuel, and this is
the design intention.
About possessing comfortable sleeping accommodations for up to six adults,
this is due to the fact that the SV28 is a really large trawler for
her l.o.a. Watching the photos of guests entering Joaquim’s just
turned upside hull, dissipates any doubt about this capability.
Click on images to enlarge them
B & G Yacht Design – our office
in Australia
Since last year, when I moved to Australia, I am involved in the task
of integrating our yacht design office with this new market. The chosen
city to establish our office was Perth, the capital of booming Western
Australia. The nautical activity is very intense here, be it sailing,
motor-boating, fishing or canoeing, either in the sheltered waters of
the Swan River, or in the Indian Ocean.
Best known by the sailing community is nearby Fremantle. Distant 15
minutes from Perth downtown but still in its metropolitan area, in the
year of 1983 Fremantle hosted the first America’s Cup regatta
raced outside the United States. The town had been completely
remodeled on that occasion and the complex of marinas built for the
event is now being used by thousands of boaters and is also an entertainment
site, with lots of restaurants and different tourist attractions. A
nice place to visit there is The Western Australia Maritime Museum,
where it is exposed one of the most famous Australian boats, Australia
II, the first yacht to beat the Americans in more than 130 years
of the America’s Cup competition.
Australia II and the Western
Australia Maritime Museum
Click on images
to enlarge them
The place I chose to settle the office was Bicton, a suburb of Perth
located in the south margin of the Swan River, a stone throw from Fremantle.
Roberto Barros, my partner, who remained in Rio de Janeiro, and I, took
some time in adapting to work so far apart from each other. We
communicate daily by e-mail and skype and during this time we learned
to take advantage of the 11 hours time difference. Now it is as
if our office is running 24 hours nonstop, since while one of us is
ending his daily routine, the other one is just beginning his day.
Luis near the Swan River
Click on images to enlarge them
I spent the first months in the new country trying to learn more about
the local market. I visited some boat shows, especially on the
west coast, talked to boaters in the marinas and clubs and sailed in
new acquaintances’ boats. The interest in strong, safe,
seaworthy, stable, reliable, easy to build, attractive and low maintenance
yachts is the general rule, and in these aspects Australians don’t
differ from people elsewhere. I soon learned that we are quite at ease
regarding these requirements, since we also pursuit these characteristics
and they belong to our design philosophy.
Luis, Astrid, Christian e Juliana
in Cape Leeuwin
Cape Leeuwin lighthouse–
where two oceans meet
Click on images
to enlarge them
Since May, 2008 we have a company officially registered in Australia.
It is B & G Yacht Design and in the coming days the new name and
logo will be displayed in our website. We are quite motivated
with this new challenge. More than just a new beginning, we feel that
the B & G Yacht Design is an extension and a step ahead on all the
hard work we had done in more than 20 years dedicated to designing yachts.
Explorer 39 being built in Uruguay.
The Uruguayan computer analyst Julio Gonzales is building an Explorer
39 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He obtained permission to use the installations
of a local technical school and is profiting from the skill and enthusiasm
of its young students.
The hull strip-planked core is already completed and was extremely
well finished. At the present time the fibreglass external lamination
has been already applied and the hull is ready to be turned upside.
Julio prepared an interesting site, www.explorer39.com,
to relate his experiences as a yacht builder.
We extracted from his site the following information and we intend
to report periodically the progresses of his construction. The Explorer
39 is a swing-keel shallow draught cruising yacht, the ideal type of
boat to operate in the River Plate, where an accelerated process of
sedimentation is turning the estuary waters shallower at each season.
In the long run Julio intends to use his boat in long distance cruising,
and he counts on the versatility of his boat to provide him with a scope
of usage unmatched by any other fixed keel yacht of the same size.
Being built at the Escuela Tecnica Marítima
del Uruguay
This home page is a tribute to all amateur
boat builders and cruising sailors.
The
construction is taking place at the Maritime school of Uruguay (UTU),
a public institution ( a small part of each one of us, Uruguayans, where
various technical courses are offered.
There is a boat building department at this school where fishing boats
and leisure crafts are built, but the Explorer 39 with her twelve meters
L.O.A. and 3.70m beam is up to now the school’s larger challenge.
The plans were acquired from B & G Yacht Design, www.yachtdesign.com.au,
former Roberto Barros Yacht Design, www.yachtdesign.com.br, a well known
yacht design group, which was first established in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
but presently is operating from Perth, Western Australia.
Why the Explorer 39 ?
The idea of building the Explorer 39 is a long time dream nurtured
during the years when I owned a Plenamar 22, a weekend sailer too small
for more ambitious dreams, and from this standing point I began looking
for something more adequate for my future plans. First I searched the
yacht market for an adequate model which suited my needs, but the prohibitive
prices of first hand yachts deterred me from acquiring a production
boat.
Then I began to consider building myself the boat I was looking for
as an amateur and, somehow, trying to prove that yachts are not necessarily
that expensive. (I’m far from claiming that amateur construction
is inexpensive. Only that prices currently practiced by the yachting
industry are abusive). Here in Uruguay it is possible to accomplish
quite interesting achievements regarding amateur boat building.
The core strip-planking already finished,
ready to be covered by the external fiberglass lamination
Click here
for other information about the Explorer 39 Class.
Vagamundo is a very good looking Multichine
28
We received an e-mail from the professional deep-water diver
Ricardo Campos, from Vitoria, southeast Brazil, informing us that the
boat he built practically unassisted finally went sailing. Looking at
the photos he sent us, it is easy to evaluate the extraordinary feat
to have built a 28 foot ocean bound cruising sail boat practically alone.
Those who tried the construction of a sailing craft of any sort as an
amateur will know so well to give the right credit to his achievement.
Ricardo was born an adventurer, and we have no doubts that the next
pages of his life will be sailing his Vagamundo to far horizons,
taking his new family along with him. His e-mail shows how touched he
was in what probably was the happiest day in his life:
Yesterday, the June 19, 2008 I went sailing with my brand-new Vagamundo
for the first time. It is necessary to pass trough this experience to
understand how I’m feeling; not exactly like the kid who received
a new toy, but more precisely, the one who went to play for the first
time with the toy he built himself. Those who lived an experience like
this in their childhoods will know quite well what does this mean.
Eight long years had passed since the day I acquired the plans at
your office. I made practically all the construction by myself, only
calling a hand to assist me when sheathing the hull with fiberglass
and when applying the final coat of poliurethane finishing paint. So
it is not surprising that I chose to sail single-handed for this first
trial. It was quite a short-lasting sail; just about four hours, the
wind blowing first, when leaving the pier, at four knots, (no engine
required; at any rate, isn’t she a sail boat? J) and then sailing
in fifteen knots breeze. I was absolutely amazed with the boat’s
ability to sail by herself, even when running. I left the tiller to
go inside the cabin to prepare a snack and to check if everything was
fine down below, and the boat remained in its course as if I had
already a self-steering gear installed. When staying in the cabin, I
was marveled to be able to watch what was going on outside, around 360°,
across her glass windows, portholes and hatches, a dream come true for
all single-handed sailors. The wind fell once more when returning to
the pier, and again I let the iron sail stay quiet is its bed and entered
under main alone until we were lashed to our finger. Not for the sailor’s
expertise, which is very small yet, but because the boat is a joy to
maneuver.
The first part of my dreams is concluded. Next step is to begin living
aboard and then go sailing to the most distant places. I hope this will
happen soon, even though I have to build a cradle in the fore cabin,
since my first son, João, is only fifteen days old. I intend
to wait until he is six months old, and then we take a decision.
Vagamundo is not entirely fit for ocean passages yet. She still requires
a bimini, a dodger, the tender, and many other items, as is the case
with most recently launched yachts. Unfortunately the company I dived
for lost its contract with Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company which
they worked for, and for that matter I am unemployed at the moment.
I’m attaching a few photos of this glorious day-sail and hope
one day to have the pleasure to receive aboard the Barros family
as my guests.
Ricardo Costa Campos
Click on images
to enlarge them
Click here to
know more about the Multichine 28 Class
Pantanal 25 made in Turkey
Last June, 4, 2008 we received this laconic e-mail with three excellent
pictures of the first Pantanal 25 made in Turkey:
Dear Roberto
We think this is the first one.
Thank you very much for your very nice plans. (Pantanal 25)
We built together. Please see her in the water.
Orhan Sati & Bahattin Bedir
Click on images
to enlarge them
Observing Zirrdeli’s photos was a very nice surprise for us.
At first place because the boat is superbly well built, with a degree
of sophistication, like for instance, teak covered cockpit seats, seldom
found in boats of amateur construction. It also impressed us the fact
that the two friends surpassed all obstacles totally unassisted by us,
since they did not require any further information besides the ones
provided with the plans. So our surprise came in a double dose, and
receiving these photos gave us an incommensurable satisfaction.
However, another surprise was expecting us; a client of ours, Birol
Ozer, who acquired the plans far later, probably influenced by Zirrdeli’s
superb finishing details, sent us an e-mail informing that he also had
completed the construction of his Pantanal 25 hull.
He wrote:
Hi Luis,
I hope you and your family are fine.
I am sending you a photo of my Pantanal 25
This weekend I’m intending to turn her upside.
I’m afraid of this action.
Kind regards.
Birol Ozer
Birol Ozer Pantanal 25
Click on images to enlarge them
The Pantanal 25 class is just getting outside its egg-shell. When we
decided to design a trailerable cruising sail boat with more creature
comforts than most other similar boats, we couldn’t dream with
the immediate approval of our ideas by so many sailors in the most varied
places. Since its introduction, the class never stopped increasing in
aficionados and there are dozens of builders in various countries working
hard to complete their boats.
The first chance we had to watch a video of a Pantanal 25 sailing took
place last April when Dark Ice, the boat built in Campinas, Brazil,
by Jorge Intaschi went for her first sea trial. This video is becoming
very popular, with more than 3.000 visits in two months. Soon Jorge
intends to produce a second one, when he will try a larger asymmetric
spinnaker on his boat.
We are praying for Aeolus to present him with a nice and fresh breeze
for us to appreciate Dark Ice’s wake.
Jorge Intaschi is installing a plant to produce the Pantanal 25 commercially
and we hope soon he will be starting his line of production.
Samoa 28 Sirius first “flight”
Samoa 28 Sirius
Daniel D’Angelo, the Argentinean geologist who built a Samoa
28 totally unassisted, in his home garden in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
already removed the boat from his lawn, employing a crane for the purpose.
Next the boat will be conducted to a professional boatyard to have the
fin-keel and rudder installed, and the final coat of polyurethane paint
applied. Daniel published in his site, http://ar.geocities.com/velerosirius/
this thrilling operation in a You Tube video.
Daniel wrote this note about the experience:
The great day of removing my beloved Sirius from my garden finally
has come. As it has been routine these last days, Murphy was there,
bringing with him all his implacable laws. The freighter, who has been
hired to transport the boat to the boatyard, didn’t come at the
appointed time, and as the crane didn’t fail to come, we had to
improvise, leaving the boat on the public sidewalk for a while.
For good chance I could count on the assistance of my neighbor
“Chavo” and his sons, who already gave me a hand when the
hull had been turned upside. Since that day they hadn’t visited
the workshop, so they where quite pleased to participate in this important
achievement.
The operation was successfully accomplished, with no mishaps, what
is good omen for Sirius first steps in the outside world. Finally we
left for the time being the hull resting on two bearers laid on the
sidewalk.
Praying not to be disturbed by the municipal authorities, we covered
the whole boat with a tarpaulin, and my neighbor Alejandro and I went
to sleep aboard, being rewarded with a 2° negative Celsius for that
first night.
Traslado Sirius
Record crop of boats from our designs
getting ready to be launched
This season we have good reasons to commemorate. To toast our first
anniversary of operation in Perth, Western Australia, it seems that
our builders wanted to reward us with a record number of boats from
our designs being finished practically at the same time.
One of them, Dark Ice, the first Pantanal 25 to go to the water, was
the premature baby of this list. Last month she went sailing and this
June she will be competing in the most important event of the Brazilian
racing calendar, the Ilha Bela Sailing Week.
Jorge Intaschi, her builder, obtained a sponsorship to finance the expenses
to participate in this series, and at the moment is training a qualified
crew, doing his best to show the boat’s potential. Dark Ice had
already been tested, when she demonstrated being capable of impressive
bursts of speed, even when sailing in light air. (See our report - Pantanal
25 Dark Ice first trial. The You Tube video shown in this article, reached
2,890 views in May, 24.).
Click on images
to enlarge them.
The other boat just launched, still needing to be rigged, is also the
first of her design to go to the water. She is the Green Flash ORC33
Class prototype built in Joinville, State of Santa Catarina, Southern
Brazil, by João de Deus Assis. This boat is one of the firsts
of this class to be concluded world wide. In Brazil she probably will
compete in the ORC Internationa class, once there are no other sister-ships
to race for line honours.
The other boat that is with her stem very close to the water is also the
first of her class to be finished. We are referring to Sirius, the pioneer
of the Samoa 28 Class.
The Argentinean geologist Daniel D'Angelo, built her in Buenos Aires,
almost unassisted during his days off the South Atlantic continental shelf
oil rig where he works. (His site is: http://ar.geocities.com/velerosirius
)
Sirius is a good example of amateur construction.
Competing with dozens of other builders in various countries, some of
them professionals, it is him who will tell us the first news about
a Samoa 28 sailing. We intend to publish a cover story in our site as
soon as he informs us about this impressive achievement.
Samoa 28 Sirius
Last but not least, it is nearly concluded the construction of our
first boat built in Korea. She is a Multichine 45 built in steel by
Mr T. J. Park. He is at the moment giving the last coats of finishing
to his handsome yacht. He didn’t tell us yet how he will call
her, but for the time being, for us she will be "The Korean MC45
Star"
The Korean MC45 Star
Multichine 28 Atairu, a masterpiece
in wood-epoxy construction.
Flab Boatyard from Campinas, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, delivered
another MC28 Class sail boat, the most popular cruising design from
our office.
Considering the level of finishing and the general woodwork quality
of all boats built by this boat yard, Flab is becoming one of the most
respected custom builders in Brazil. The yard is run by Flávio
Rodrigues, a specialist in wooden boat building. The standard of his
joiner work is one of the bests in this country.
Even though our office is presently established in Perth, Western Australia,
the twenty continuous years we operated in Brazil established permanent
roots with the cream of the cream of the Brazilian custom boat builders,
something we really prize. Most of these builders are linked with our
site. (See links in our front page.)
We have reported in our news practically every launching of the boats
built by Flab. It is our intention to promote his wonderful level of
construction to the North American, Australian and European market,
where labor and the cost of wood are so expensive. We reckon that in
those countries, unless a boat is built by her owner, it is almost unaffordable
for a middle class person to order a custom wood/epoxy sail or motor
boat.
We haven’t been successful in convincing potential overseas clients
with a commitment with Flab yet, since up to now all his clients are
local ones. Flavio really doesn’t need a hand from us, since he
has enough orders from the local market to keep him busy, but considering
his potential in pleasing the most demanding of his clients, we would
love to see him opening his scope for the international market.
Atairu’s galley details
The MC28 is a design intended for amateur construction. There are almost
two hundreds of boats from this design being built or sailing in ten
different countries, in four continents. Many of their builders intend
to accomplish long distance cruising, some of them having a round the
world trip as their goals. The couple Ivana and Antonio Piqueres, the
Atairu owners, are no exception. They intend to sail the Brazilian coast
from south to north and then their plans are unlimited. Since Atairu
was built by a professional boat yard of such an excellence of quality,
this MC28 tends to become an important ambassador for the class. It
happens, however, that there are many other well built and fancily finished
MC28’s. So, it is expected that the class will expand in numbers
and geographic scope. We are grateful with the empathy of our builders
with the design and we will keep informing our readers about the progress
of the class.
Click here to
know more about the Multichine 28 class
Multichine 23 - Sollazzo
We reported a few months ago the launching of the beautiful MC 23MK
IV Sollazzo. Now, her builder Flavio Traiano sent us an e-mail relating
the first cruise aboard his home-built cruising sail boat.
We were particularly pleased in receiving this e-mail, considering
we developed these plans having in mind young families like his.
The fact that he and his family had a great time during the holidays
is a reward for our work, since our intention was to provide to the
amateur the plans of a cheap and easy to build twenty-three foot sail
boat capable of taking a small family in a coastal cruise in comfort
and safety. His report about the trip say a lot about how pleased he
was with the new experience. His words sound like music and are very
gratifying for us.
Finally we completed our first cruise with Sollazzo, our home-built
MC 23 MK IV.
A few months passed after Sollazzo’s launching, but that was
the time required to complete the boat, when important details of the
interior construction were performed. During this preparation phase
we only used the boat in day-sailing, just to test her in the open sea,
when we eventually experienced tough weather, giving us the necessary
confidence to go further out.
We left Rio in the beginning of April 2008. The trip was eventless
and we managed to keep five knots speed average along the way, pushed
by a light southeast, sometimes with the assistance of our auxiliary.
We spent, my two and a half years old daughter, my wife and I, five
marvelous days gunkholing between Ilha Grande and Angra. We slept and
cooked aboard during all these days, and this included two delicious
barbecues grilled in our marine kettle.
I was delighted about my crew's enthusiasm with this life-style during
these hollidays. Our pocket cruiser accommodated us comfortably during
the whole trip. We managed to store neatly our food supply, cooking
utensils, diving and fishing equipment, tool kit, sailing hardware,
etc, besides an incredible amount of personal gear. It wasn’t
even necessary to refill the water and fuel tanks during the cruise,
in spite of daily fresh water bathes and plenty of motor-sailing. We
used the engine for about one hour daily, enough to ensure full-charged
bateries, even though there was no worry about energy saving. We used
regularly our stereo and watched films in our notebook, never experiencing
lack of power aboard.
The photos attached give a good idea on how wonderful our cruise was.
The first trial couldn’t be more pleasant. Sollazzo proved to
be an excellent boat for her size. There are still other small things
to be done, however, from now on I consider to have concluded the construction,
and that the boat is ready to go anywhere.
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“It
is just to improve my intimacy with the new dwelling, he explains.
Next, he will adapt Fraternidade as a laboratory ship, inviting
scientists of the most varied specialties as crewmembers. Only
after a rigorous selection he will take the decision of who is going
with him, and this selection may take some time to be accomplished.
The
fourth trip is soon to be started! This time, Belov wants to give
the opportunity to others to get to know the world, and one of them
can be you.
During
the last years Aleixo Belov spent more time ashore than at sea.
The reason for this radical change was his decision to build the new
boat nearly twice the size of Três Marias. The
new sailboat, baptized Fraternidade is twenty-one metres long,
with a 6,70m beam, two masts, 60 tons of pure steel ( carbon steel in
the hull, with deck and keel case built in stainless steel.). Now the
boat is ready to go anywhere, after five years since he ordered the
plans, and built by himself in his shipyard in Salvador, where Belov
lives when he is not sailing the wide world. The launching took
place just a few weeks ago and the boat is bringing a lot of attention
from the local yachting community.
Fraternidade
( Belov doesn´t hide from anybody that in the various times he
visited his friend’s yacht in Ushuaia, he came back with scribbles
that were kept for when he decided to build his new boat. It was then
that he opted for two fixed shallow rudders instead of just one, retractable.
Fraternidade
has all the ingredients to become a historic sailboat, not
only for the details of her construction, but for her endeavors. It
will represent well the spirit of the country, where new ideas
flourish with such vigor, commented Roberto Barros, from B & G Yacht
Design.;)
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In the year 2000, the B & G owned Fiu was concluded, while Makay,
Roberto Ceppas boat, was launched a little earlier. Soon the fame of
the MC28 class, pushed by the success of the two boats and some other
very well built ones, which were already sailing, spread internationally,
and now there are almost two hundred of these boats being built or sailing
in eleven different countries.;)
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Interest
in the GP 33’s is rapidly expanding across
the globe, with the completion of a Nelson/Marek
design for Japan and the latest launch announced
by Joao de Deus Assis in Brazil. Joao has
shared some thoughts with us on his new boat:
What
materials were used to build the boat and
the spar?
What
kind of sailing are you planning to do, and
where?
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The
construction is taking place at the Maritime school of Uruguay (UTU),
a public institution ( a small part of each one of us, Uruguayans, where
various technical courses are offered. 
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