Curruira 42 trawler hull n° 1 turning over party

Early this January I had the opportunity to take part in a barbecue to toast the turning upside of the first Curruira 42 built by Flab Boatyard, from Campinas, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was necessary on that occasion to complete a round the world trip just to be there to participate in the event. In May 2007 I had traveled to Perth, Western Australia, where our office is presently established. My route was by way of Santiago, Auckland and Sidney. This time I flew to Dubay and São Paulo, and now I have warranted the right to stick an X in my cockpit, despite the discomfort of the tiresome twenty-one hours trip and the eleven hours jet-lag. But in the end it was worth all the effort.

Clients and friends – Fernando (Curruíra 46 “Rainha Janota”); Roberta e Nico (Curruíra 42 “Argenores”); Luis Gouveia; Joaquim (Southern Voyager 28); Rubens (Multichine 23 “Vida Dura”); Diana e Daniel (Samoa 34 “Zait”); Flávio; Roberto (Diamond 6.0 “Matisse”)

Arriving in the boatyard was a very rewarding sensation. Instead of entering in a dusty and noisy plant in an industrial suburb of any large city, I was in a rural area nearby Campinas, with many trees and pastures with cows and horses. The sheds where the boats are built are open-walled and surrounded by tall trees, by no means disturbing the landscape. I was also quite impressed with the neatness of the place, a condition seldom found in other custom building workshops. Presently Flab Boatyards have five boats of different lengths, all of them from Roberto Barros Yacht Design office under construction, and soon they will start to build a 46 foot trawler also designed by our studio.

I arrived a few days before the date scheduled for the event and took the opportunity for promoting technical meetings with Flavio Rodrigues, the director of the company, about many details in the construction of the Curruira 42, and closer to the day of the party, I had the chance to do the same with the various other clients who were invited for the party. What impressed me most when I first glanced at the upside-down hull of the Curruira 42 was her huge size.(It’s amazing how misleading it is to watch a drawing in the monitor and seeing the actual boat in  three dimensions.) Considering her generous beam, it is unquestionable that she is a huge trawler for her length, the very dream of many potential owners. In spite of being in an upside-down position yet, and its empty interior, the structural bulkheads already installed gave a good idea of how she is going to be when completed: the fore compartment with the sleeping accommodations, the central bilge area where the engine room and fuel tanks will be installed, and the after quarters with its steering gear installation.

The standard of finishing of the outside of the hull is worth the warmest compliment. The Ply-glass construction method (marine plywood sheathed with a thick layer of fiberglass) is a building technique that makes the most durable boats a boatyard is able to construct, but the fairing and smoothing of the fibreglass external surface requires a skilled job not to show hollows or bumps on the outside. In the case of the Curruira 42 the finishing was perfect and the chines did not show the slightest inflection.
The evening before the turning-over party all guests were invited for dinner, an opportunity for testing the heart conditions of some of the participants, especially Flavio’s and Nico Araujo’s, the builder and the happy owner.

Early in the next day the whole preparation was performed: tables and chairs were laid in place, the barbecue grill heated and the background music equipment tested, while the unquestionable star of the show, the Curruira 42, remained static in its building grid. But the time had come for the grand finale.

Effusive congratulations, acknowledgments, ironic speeches, all of these were loudly heard in the next few moments. Suddenly an out of the script ‘happy birthday to you’ was rendered, since in spite of nobody having been warned, it was Flavio’s anniversary.
Next every member of the boatyard team, under the command of their Maestro, took their positions in the carefully planned turning over operation scheme. As a chicken on a skewer, the trawler had two sticks fixed, one ahead of her stem and the other on the transom, both aligned with the fore and aft centre of gravity axis. If it wasn’t for friction, the weight of a butterfly landing on one of the topsides would suffice to turn the heavy trawler upside, so the whole operation didn’t take a long time to be accomplished. An absolute silence reigned when the boat started to turn, and a murmur could be heard when the deck reached the vertical. Then very quickly the Curruira 42 was already standing in its upside position. At this time people started to clap hands, but they halted, since the operation wasn’t over yet. The boat still needed to be lowered in her cradle. This was done in slow motion and only then the whole public began to cheer the achievement.

Surrounded by the other guests who congratulated him, Nico let a few tears roll down  his face and soon a ladder was installed for him to climb aboard, followed by Flavio and all the others. Then the party was established inside the hull and for the second time that day a ‘happy birthday to you’ was rendered.

Nico was already dreaming with his boat completed, cruising the tropical waters of Bahia, one of the most beautiful cruising grounds the world over. But this is another story that we want to report the soonest possible.
People were called back to the shed’s floor where two cakes with lighted candles awaited guests and the boatyard staff: One for Nico’s Curruira and the other for Flavio’s birthday.

The Curruira ready to the turning over	The party in the boatyard	The turning over begins	45 degrees	80 degrees.	90 degrees, deck
90 degrees, hull	Almost there...	The turning over is finished	Gong down to the cradle.	End of the Show	Nico Araújo celebrating the completion of the hull construction
Deck	Flávio, Nico and Luis inside the Curruíra	End of the party, the boat is ready for the next step of the construction	Future dreams