THE NEW BOREAL 44.2, A GREAT ALUMINUM BLUEWATER CRUISER

More than 10 years ago Boreal stormed the aluminum sailboat market with a boat that would be a huge success and would launch a new brand that would occupy a significant place among voyage aluminum boat builders.

The boat had modern lines but looked unrefined in what regards looks and interior design, even so, the boat qualities make it a success probably because it was designed by a sailor, Jean-François Delvoye that had finished a 6-year circumnavigation with the family, on a boat that he had built himself. After the circumnavigation, he had very clear ideas about what the improvements should be to implement on a voyage boat to become the ideal boat to make the kind of cruising he had done, his perfect yacht.

His ideas were enriched by the ones of great sailors he met on his voyages, all with a taste for sailing in remote and isolated places (he spent two years sailing in Patagonia). Obviously, if he was a different type of sailor, not sailing with a big family (4 children), or without a taste for sailing in high-latitudes, cold and deserted places, the ideal yacht would be very different and I can assure you that there is not something like the "best yacht in the world", being the "best yacht" very different, for different sailors.

He wanted: "a ballasted boat with a centerboard going windward, without slamming into the waves and with a soft helm...an ergonomic cockpit with 2 sheltered outside seats...a real visibility for the helmsman while sailing and maneuvering...a real watertight door... an interior station with a huge chart table, allowing you to watch at 360° from inside while navigating...big storage capacities and important gas and water tanks....the possibility to store big stuff ...a roomy and welcoming cockpit...a well thought ventilation...a center boarder to beach and to go in so many places you cannot go into with a big draught."

And he had managed all this on the 44, even if things like real visibility for the helmsman or that  360º interior view from a station were relative, and the choice of a centerboard implied a considerable loss in sail performance, except downwind, but being this a voyage boat, trade winds would be by far the predominant, and that disadvantage less important.

For minimizing the speed disadvantage due to excessive weight, a centerboarder has to have a worse AVS and worse safety stability than a bluewater fin-keeled boat, with a considerable draft and a bulbed keel. Dutch centerboarders, which today are almost extinct, did not go that way and for offering a similar AVS and safety stability had around a 50%B/D.

That made them very slow boats, even downwind, if the wind was not strong, and unable to plan in stronger winds. That is not the case of the French centerboarders, especially the bigger ones (smaller metal boats are proportionally heavier) and the original Boreal 44 had a 36%B/D, which can be considered high if we compared to the one of the OVNI 450 (32%), especially if we consider that the ballast in the OVNI is inside the boat and the one of the Boreal was mostly on a kind of short keel, from midships to the back of the hull.

Note that to be approved as Class A the boat has to have a minimum AVS but that minimum decreases with the boat size (with mass) and on a boat with 10 430kg like the Boreal 44, that minimum is only 100º, even if that is considered by most as unsuitable for a bluewater boat. 

Note that I am not saying that the Boreal 44 has only a 100º AVS, quite the contrary, due to the buoyancy of the partially closed dodger, with a waterproof door, the AVS is higher than the one of the OVNI 450, but the safety stability would be close, or very similar, and very far from the one of a bluewater boat with a keel, like a Hallberg Rassy or an X-yacht.

The cabin and dodger buoyancy will not affect positively the stability curve except in angles very near 90º (or over), and that means that when the boat is knocked down, it will not affect the force that the RM is making for righting the boat. The part of the stability curve that is used for righting a boat from high heel angles is what I call safety stability, and if the AVS Boreal is good (due to cabin and dodger buoyancy), that is not the case with the safety stability (due to the low B/D).

Note also that this type of centerboarders can lift the board up and still remain with the same stability, and in bad weather with the centerboard up, they will not trip on the keel when the boat is hit laterally by a breaking wave. That allows them to dissipate the wave energy sliding laterally, while a traditional sailboat, with a large and deep immersed keel, would have the bigger part of the wave energy transformed in a rotating movement. 

This is an advantage centerboards have over other sailboats, especially the ones with keels with a large area, but does not diminish the problem when the boat is knocked down, and that can happen just by a huge wind gust or a big breaking wave, leaving it exposed for a relatively long time, on the side, almost without remaining stability, at the mercy of the next wave. 

That is why it makes sense for these type of boats to be big, 44ft or bigger, sizes that give them big overall stability (hull form stability and displacement) that makes more difficult, or even improbable, a capsize on of very rare sea and weather conditions.  That is also why the SA/D of this type of boat is normally smaller than the one that can sustain a knockdown without any significant problem (being able to right itself up immediately) and the smaller SA/D also diminishes the knockdown risk.

The experience shows that capsizes with this type of sailboats are rare, especially with this size or bigger, and even if I consider it necessary to know about its limitations (to sail it accordingly) the Boreal 44 is a seaworthy boat, with a big hull form stability and big overall stability.

Note the small keel where the ballast is located

The new one will have a bigger hull form stability due to a bigger beam (4.39 to 4.30m) but a considerably smaller B/D 28.7% to 36.4%. The ballast is the same on both boats but while the older model light displacement was 10 430kg, the new one displaces 13 250kg, a huge difference for such a  small difference in length (13.80 to 13.87).

Because both displacements are in lightship condition, the difference in weight can only partially be attributed to a bigger beam and higher freeboards, but it has to be due also to a more heavily built boat, and that can be good on this type of boat, but not the absence of the correspondent increase in ballast, to have the same B/D.

Of course, everything is a trade-off and the 1027kg extra ballast (probably more because it would have to be located inside the hull) that the new boat would need to have the same B/D as the older model, would make the boat even heavier and slower, considering that it is already 2820kg heavier than the previous model.

With this B/D and considering that the ballast is in a small keel outside the hull, in what regards safety stability this boat should not be far from the OVNI 450, which displaces 11 550kg, while the previous model would have considerable bigger safety stability and AVS. However, the overall stability will be bigger on the Boreal 44.2 due to the bigger displacement.

Boreal 44. The 44.2 will have a similar layout

And that's the only thing I don't like on the new version (much bigger displacement and smaller B/D), even if the overall stability is bigger this is going to be a slower sailboat, even with slightly bigger sails. The older version had the same sail area in the main and genoa (45 and 55m2) and only the staysail (this boat has a cutter rig) passed from 22 to 26m2. Displacing more 2820kg and with practically the same sail area and more beam, this boat is going to be considerably slower than the original Boreal 44.

Boreal 44. The 44.2 interiors will be similar

All the rest seems much nicer, from the hull design to the overall design. The boat does not seem any more amateur-designed, it seems well designed and modern, especially in regards to the outside.

Regarding the inside, the apparently larger window surfaces are only cosmetic and don't translate in interior significantly bigger "windows" neither by a more luminous interior (having as reference the 47.2).

If compared to the interior of the last models of other brands of voyage aluminum sailboats, the ones from Boreal seem of good quality and practical, but show clearly that they are not designed by a top interior designer and lack style, beauty, and design quality. I hope that the improvements in design refinement, that the new boat clearly shows on the outside, is going to be followed by an equivalent upgrade in interior design quality.

The 47.2 interior that is given as a reference for the 44.2 

Another thing that deserves to be pointed out is that the centerboard on the Boreal 44.2 is smaller than on the Allures 45.9, OVNI 450, or Garcia 45 (2.48 draft to 2.90m in all of them) and this will contribute to worse upwind performance, that is not a really good one in all of them (if compared with a bluewater fin keel yacht): in the light wind due to the extra ballast. And in strong winds due to less power, there is not a similar and proportional increase in RM when the boat heels to bigger heel sailing angles (higher CG).

Boreal 44

Aluminum sailboats are generally more expensive than most fiberglass boats and the huge increase in aluminum price did not help. This boat costs at the shipyard (France), standard with two sails, without electronics, without taxes 538 525€ that is slightly less than what costs an Xc-45 and also slightly less than a Saare 46, but a bit more than the also Aluminum Allures 45.9.

A correct price, taking into account the quality of the building and the high resistance of the hull (that has a bow that can break ice) and that is reflected in a long waiting list. If you order one now, it will be delivered only in 2025.