SALONA 380, A GREAT BOAT BUT.....

But be very careful before ordering one. I recommended one to friends, helped them to make the deal and more than two years after they have not yet the boat delivered. No date for delivery and have the boat full paid. I emailed Salona complaining about that some months ago and the CEO replied to me saying that they would have the boat delivered soon. Several months later that CEO is no more on Salona and they don't give a date for boat delivery.
The boat, a Salona 38, is made (for several months now), but it has no sails and no electronic and it seems they don't have money to buy and install them. They are working on a 60ft, that was commanded later, but that is not yet fully paid, as the Salona 38 is. 

The ones that know me from the times of the previous thread (same name of the blog) on sailnet (more than 1 million hits) know that I had only said good things about Salona and that I helped to raise the brand reputation on US, being several yachts bought after sailors read my comments on Salonas (they have told me so).

I post this advice on the same spirit, the one to talk about boats and builders with trustfulness regarding what I know, no matter what. I wish Salona a rapid recovery and I hope they start to act in a trustworthy way because if not they are done anyway, sooner or later.

Meanwhile if you want a boat by the same designer (Cossutti), very similar, also with a stainless steel backbone, just a bit bigger and a bit less expensive, I would recommend you to look at this one, the More 40:

It is being built by a new shipyard that had already made a 55. The Shipyard is owned by Swedes but it is on Croatia (not far from the Salona one) and some of the workers that used to be from Salona are working there now. I don't know this shipyard the same way I knew Salona  but I guess it has to be better, at least in what regards delivering boats. Leo Curin, that I knew personally (ex Developer manager on  Salona ) is ahead of the production.

http://more-boats.hr/yachts.php
https://www.moresailing.co.uk/blog/article/seilas-is-writing-once-more-about-more-40-/138

VENDEE GLOBE: THE BOATS

Regarding the sailboats we will have an edition as interesting as the one in 2000/2001 that saw for the first time a canting keel boat winning the race. Many thought that the concept was not reliable enough for a circumnavigation race. The same happens with this race regarding the new "flying" foils and some, like Riou, prefered to play safe, not using them. One thing is for sure, it they will not break it will be a flying boat winning this race and probably the 24 hour record for a solo monohull sailboat will be beaten by a large margin. Flying boats are awesome and raised the beauty of sailing to another level. Enjoy:

THE VENDEE GLOBE STARTS TOMORROW AT 13.02 CET

You can follow the race start direct on the official site or in any of the 33 TV stations that will transmit it live.  The circumnavigation race takes only place each four years and  this is only the 8th edition, being the first the one in 1989/1990.

The Vendee Globe is not only my favorite sail race (since the first edition) as it is the one that had put sailing among the most popular sport events, well not really sailing but the vendee and the vendee is about sailing at is best. Last year the start was covered live by 22 TV stations. This year it will be live on 33 TV stations all over the world!!!!

Cheers to them all, the organizers, the racers and the French because without the enthusiasm of the French for sailing, particularly solo sailing, there would no be a Vendee. Today on the starting line, with 29 racers, we can see sailors from many different nationalities.

If we look at the podium of all editions we will be looking for the ones that dominated monohull solo sailing since the 90's:

1989–90 - Titouan Lamazou, Loïck Peyron, Jean-Luc Van Den Heede; 1992–93 - Alain Gautier, Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, Philippe Poupon; 1996–97 - Christophe Auguin, Marc Thiercelin, Hervé Laurent; 2000–01 - Michel Desjoyeaux, Ellen MacArthur, Roland Jourdain ; 2004–05 - Vincent Riou, Jean Le Cam, Mike Golding; 2008–09 - Michel Desjoyeaux, Armel Le Cléac’h, Marc Guillemot; 2012–13 - François Gabart, Armel Le Cléac’h, Alex Thomson. 

 Maybe this year we will see the first non French winning the race. We have racers from more 8 countries including an American a New Zealander and a Japonese butIt seems to me that the only one that has a decent chance to do that is the British Alex Thomson, 3rd on the last edition.

On past editions the only podiums not integrally French had British on it, the great and only Ellen MacArthur, Mike Golding and Alex Thomson were the ones. Ellen MacArthur made 2th and she become instantly more popular in France than in UK. Sill today the French have a huge respect and admiration for that Lady.

As a tribute to all those incredible sailors and to the race itself let's have a short look at all editions, unfortunately only in French, but the images tell half the story. As a side comment you can see on the 2001-02 edition a boat that went straight to the beach, on the Portuguese shore. It come so fast that broke the keel and only stopped near the cliffs. It was on Baleal beach, the place were I lived at the time and I was one of the first on the scene. Nothing happened to the sailor, Patrick de Radiguès, a Belgian, that was asleep and only awake when the boat hit the sand. 

Please feel free to use the comments section of this post (and the others I will post about the race) as if this was a boat forum. I will be glad to have the participation of all of you on the following of this race. You can select the option to be notified when comments are posted. The race will be even more enjoyable to follow if there is a wide participation through the comments section.

VOR 2017/2018, THE ROUTE

Yes I know, the biggest sail race on the planet is starting in three days and I promise to post about the new edition of the Vendee Globe but before all our attention goes to it, time to look at another great race, the VOR and some great videos posted when I was cruising. Here they are:

MIDDLE SEA RACE AND GIRAGLIA, THE VIDEOS

Yes I know, I haven't covered the Giraglia, the other Med classic, I was cruising, but that's not a reason not to share a nice video. The wind and sea conditions did not provide for truly spectacular images, even if some are just beautiful. By the way the cover boat of the Middle Sea Race video is the Solaris 42 that won the 2 crew division. Nice to see the Double handed division deserving the spotlight ;-)

DIVA 34SC, A GORGEOUS DESIGN

Diva is a brand of high quality Swedish boats that used to have some of the best handcraft interiors I ever saw. Unfortunately that went also with a conservative outlook in boat design, not too much but enough to make them not very interesting under all other points except interior design and  quality.

That changed with the Diva 34SC that is a gorgeous looking design, modern in all aspects, including interior design. I just hope that the "old" interior quality will be maintained, now on a very modern and functional layout with a very contemporary look.

The boat numbers are also very interesting. The Diva 34 has a very moderate beam (3.48m) is light (4550kg) and has a lot of ballast on a high efficient torpedo keel (36% B/D) and it is built using expensive techniques used in race boats to allow it to be light and strong. The hull is infused in one only shoot that includes all boat and keel structure, like for instance the JPK.

All looks great except the water tankage that is reduced to 100L, too low for any cruising out of week end rides, or going from one marina to another. A pity since the interior looks adequate for more substancial cruising, Maybe they can offer it with another suplementar tank of the same size.

The Diva 34SC can be offered with two wheels or with a tiller. The two wheel set up does not make any sense since all the rigging and winch location was thought for a tiller set up.

FRANCIS JOYON GOING FOR THE WORLD CIRCUMNAVIGATION SAIL RECORD

Francis Joyon, one of the top multihull skippers is just waiting for the right conditions to set sail on one more attempt at the world sailing circumnavigation record that belongs to Banque Populaire and Loick Peyron (45 days 13 hours 42 minutes 53 seconds). Banque Populaire was crewed by 14, IDEC, Joyon's boat has a crew of only 6!!! They tried last year (with the same crew) and failed for about two days. IDEC is the "old" Groupama 3 with some modifications. Groupama 3 was the holder of the record (with Cammas - 2010) before Peyron took it away (2012). I wish them good look :-).