THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SEA STORY?

I am afraid not to be able to tell this story as it deserves to be told. It is the story of Tara Tari, Capucine and Corentin and it is a beautiful and sad story. I can only compare it in its beauty and simplicity with the Petit Prince by Saint Exupery. He said “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart” and that’s the case with this unfinished tale. While the Petit Prince lived in a book and in the soul of the men that did not kill the child that once they were, Capucine Trochet is a true princess and she lives on the sea, aboard Tara Tari.

It’s difficult to know how to begin because in her short life Capucine has already lived much more than me, that am old and lived well. She is French, from Brittany, but was raised in Barcelona where she lived between 9 and 18 years of age. At 23 she travelled in Chile to know the Andes range and its people. She stayed there for two years, walked 4000km till the Magellan Strait and there, looking at the sea she felt that her life would only make sense in a boat. Not a big boat, a solo boat and she start dreaming of mini racers and the mini Transat.

Returned to France, worked to buy a mini racer (Pogo 2), lived aboard and trained every day for the next Transat. That was back in 2009 and just some weeks before the big race she had problems with a leg and, what seemed to be a small problem, was terribly worse. She had a rare disease that affects the ligaments. The first of a long series of surgeries and long hospitals visits takes place. Her mobility is gravelly affected. In 2010 she is a bit better and will make her first and only mini race with Amaury, the Mini Empuries, a 300Nm course. She writes much better than me (she is a journalist) and wrote a very nice article about that:

http://www.voilesetvoiliers.com/course-regate/vecu-mini-empuries-en-pogo-2-il-n-y-avait-plus-d-aiguilles-sur-le-cadran/

But after the great happiness of her first race (8th) the saddest news awaited her: She learned from her surgeon that the other leg was worse and that with time she would be paralyzed. Shocked with the news she understood that her dreams of solo racing would never become more than a dream and that she would never race her boat, that had been on the hard, for more than a year, waiting her to get better. 

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Meanwile, on the other side of the world, another fantastic story happened with Corentin and Tara Tari, a magic boat.

In Bangladesh, one of the greatest XXI century Naval Architect, Marc Van Peteghem tries to help the local populations, on an humanitarian mission working with the Friendship ONG.
http://www.friendship-bd.org/

Van Peteghem founds “Watever” with Yves Marre to search techniques and materials to build better and less expensive traditional boats. He develops an inexpensive way to build in a much stronger way the traditional boats used by the fishermen, using the local jute (vegetable tissue), fiberglass and resins polyester. Corentin de Chatelperron, a French engineer, using those techniques and a design by Marc Van Peteghem based on local boats and improving them, builds Tara Tari (2009) on the Shipyard of the same name, founded by Yves Marre. 

In 2010, to give visibility to the project, Corentin sails successfully the traditional boat from Koakata (Bangladesh) to La Ciotat (France), through the Suez Channel. He makes the 9 000Nm in 186 days.

After that, with the funds and supports he raised, he returns to Bangladesh to continue the technological search to build a less expensive and ecological boat using only a composite of Jute (the Tara Tari was made with 40% Jute and 60% fiberglass) and manages to build "Gold of Bengal", a Sampan made only with Jute composite. He is now testing the materials and the boat on an extensive cruise on the Indian Ocean.
Fair winds to him.

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Let’s get back to 2010 and Capucine to see how those two stories cross and become interconnected.

Capucine works as Journalist specialized in sailing and she made the coverage of the voyage of Corentin and Tara Tari for Yahoo sports ( a very good read) :

https://fr.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/capucine-trochet/tara-tari-les-premiers-temps-en-mer-5236.html
https://fr.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/capucine-trochet/tara-tari-l-espoir-corentin-chatelperron-5201.html

Capucine met Corentin at the 2010 Paris Boatshow. Corentin was there with Tara Tari trying to raise funds for continuing the search for a traditional Jute boat and a nice complicity was born between the two: Corentin wanted to get back to Bangladesh to build a new traditional jute sailboat and did not know what to do with Tara Tari. Capucine, with a broken heart, her dreams to be a solo racer shattered, had the crazy idea of proposing him to let her cross the Atlantic on Tara Tari. Corentin liked the idea immediately.

But Tara Tari needed a lot of work and after her 9th surgery she was in a really bad shape, on a wheel chair, and nobody believed that she would be able to put Tara Tari again in conditions for an Atlantic crossing. After its long voyage from India the boat needed a deep restoration.

I will ask Capucine to tell this part of the story because I cannot really transmit the emotions her words can (from an interview in Voile et Voiliers):

“After this 9th operation in January with a long convalescence in Kerpape hospital I was not going well. I looked at the picture of my Pogo, but it was too frustrating to stay in bed while my sailing buddies sailed away. When I left rehabilitation, I started repairing Tara Tari ... under morphine for the pain!! I had a crush with that sailboat, I really wanted to restore it. It was dirty, rusty, it was necessary to take everything away, remove the mast, the lateral boards that weighed 200 kilos, the floor panels, the water tanks in bad shape, strip all the boat to make repairs in some places. 

At first I scratched the hull for 15 minutes and I had to stop because I could not use the grinder longer. I finally managed a way to pull myself inside the boat, but on the way down, I cracked the coccyx - I did not say anything because I did not want to go to the hospital again. Nobody understood, people saw my condition, the boat, and they thought: " That’s not going to be possible".

And then one day, by not stopping to crawl around to work (as I could) on my little “shipyard”, I realized that I was reeducating myself alone, I had less trouble in doing things my way. Doctors thought that all this work out of the hospital had been beneficial to me.

 I could not wait to put the boat in the water, I even worked at night with the headlights of the car. The hull was in good condition, the structure was sound …I added weight in the bottom for better stability. I worked all the summer. ……….”

http://forum.sofa.blogs.cache.voilesetvoiliers.customers.artful.net/grande-croisiere/l-atlantique-avec-tara-tari-capucine-trochet-il-ne-faut-jamais-renoncer-a-ses-objectifs/deliaPreview=1/

She received a lot of help from the solo sailing community, the one that she once dreamed to belong to; many solo racers helped her with material and gifts as well as several sailing companies and the shipyard. In the end Tara Tari was as good as new.
 In October 2011 it was put on the water in L’Orient and extensively tested with Corentin. All seemed well and the boat was taken to Ciotat, on the Mediterranean, the place where Tara Tari had made port, coming from India.

From there, in November, she started her voyage, most of the time solo, sometimes with Maxime, a friend.
 She says that the voyage on the Med (in the winter) was a lot worse than the Atlantic crossing. There was a problem in the boat and it made a lot of water (in 10minutes 20cm of water). She had to solo sail it in one of the world’s zones with more boat traffic at the same time she bailed it out trying to find in between some minutes to sleep. Finally the boat was repaired in Gibraltar. The Spanish Fishermen gave her a lot of support and help. They were incredulous to find a little girl on a little boat out on the sea in winter time.

Capucine made it to the Canary Islands without problems, arriving in May 2012 and waited there for the end of the Cyclone season to make sail again, this time to Cabo Verde. Maxime joined her for the passage. They had a rough time, with big waves and 45k winds. The passage took 11 days, 9 of them very difficult, without any sail up, doing 5K and being knocked down lots of times. The leg from Cabo Verde to Martinique was a lot better. They sailed out with 30k wind and they took 25 days to arrive. Not a bad time for such a little boat. 

She left the boat in Martinique and crewed a sailboat back to France, to be seen by their doctors and to see her family. She stayed not for long. Capucine is back Martinique repairing again Tara Tari before going for a 5 month cruise on the Caribbean sea and to make a visit to Miami.

From there she has plans to make a Trans Pacific voyage, to India, to bring the boat back home but for that she needs to see how the boat ages. After all it is an experimental boat made with jute and there is just no information about the boat resistance or durability.

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If you are on that side of the pond please say hello for me to Capucine, a great sailor and a greater human being. She started her active life as a teenager (17 years of age) building a school in Burkina Faso, on a project managed by her, after having raised (with the help of her parents) 75000 euros; She walked alone some of the most inhospitable mountains on earth; She learned how to solo sail and race mini class racers and after being diagnosed a disease that should left her paralyzed and robbed her the future she had dreamed of, she fought destiny and crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat I would not dare crossing the Med and plans to keep on sailing it while she can, while she can defeat her fate.

Capucine says she had learned with the best, referring to solo ocean racers, well, I know the best are deeply impressed with her and those men and women are not easily impressed. To say that I am impressed with her is an understatement. I think she is greater than life and his life is a lesson to all of us. This is my modest homage to her, the bigger post I want ever to make on this blog. I hope it helps making her more known out of France, particularly on the US where she is going to give some lectures to raise funds to continue his voyage. 

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Chapeau to her, a big one :-)

GRAND SOLEIL 46 LC

Big news: A bit surprisingly, after  being bought by the Sly yachts group, Grand Soleil announces a completely new line the LC series that stands for Long Cruise. The first boat will be the 46LC that will be presented at the Cannes boat show, in September, and will be joined by another 4 models on the next 4 years.

They chose not to use the 47 GS hull designed by Marcelino Botin, and even if the hull seems very similar, as well as the weight (around 11T), the new boat is a completely new design, by  Marco Lostuzzi, the one that designs Sly yachts. It will have a bit more beam as well as a bigger freeboard.

11 000kg for a long range cruiser points to a very fast boat and indicates another option than the one followed by X yacht on their long range cruising line. The XC 45 weighs about 13000kg, more 20% than the 46 and that is a lot. Probably this new line is part of the joint strategy of the group that owns Sly yachts and GS, where Sly yachts will be presenting the more sportive boats and Grand Soleil will remain with two lines, one of less sportive and less expensive performance cruisers and another of long range cruisers or even with time, they will have their main production diverged towards the last one.

The new boat, the 46 LC, is clearly a boat more pointed to the main market, with a bigger interior volume, more freeboard, bigger hull ports.  The main will be sheeted  through an arch and probably the traveler will be dropped, huge dodger and the possibility of having a shade for all cockpit while sailing. All this gives  the 46LC a bit of a Beneteau Oceanis look, I mean more of a crossover between an Oceanis and a Grand Soleil. I cannot say that I like it very much. 

Regarding the niche market of the boat, and given what has been told, it can still go two ways: Either approaching more the main market and that means a less expensive boat that will have to downgrade the sailing hardware regarding the performance Crand soleils (that means, no main traveler, simplification of the sailing hardware, "cruising" mast, less winches, no backstay tensioner)  for bringing the price down and or it will go towards the luxury line and then the boat will be probably be more expensive than the performance cruiser series, entering on the small luxury market in competition with the Xc cruising line, Halberg-Rassy, Solaris and Italia Yachts. The first way seems to me the one that makes more sense even if I doubt they can approach for instance Dufour GL prices and that means they will have to offer a better finish.

VIDEOS: 360º ROLL and CARIBBEAN 600

Two very nice videos. The first, a 360º roll happened on Palma de Maiorca races, "Trofeo Princesa Sophia" to an unhappy Finn sailor Gref Douglas and his misery can be very fun to look at :-) Nice and fast recovery is all I can say, as well as the images are not only funny but incredible.
  This one is a very beautiful movie taken on the Caribbean 600. Not really a resume, just a a very nice highlighting with the best images of the race. It deserves to be seen: sailing is beautiful and you don't have to be a sailor to find these images gorgeous.

COMET and the CATS ( 37 and 62)

Big news on the Italian yacht  building Industry: One of the oldest Italian yacht shipyards is on the verge of big changes; they are going to start a catamaran series that will join their line of performance cruisers and big performance yachts.

The Comar shipyard, the builder of Comets started in 1961 as a small operation, manufacturing some of the first Glass Reinforced Plastic boats (GRP). Today more than 5000 sailboats have been built, some with 100ft. One of the more recent  is a 85ft training vessel for the Italian Guarda Costieira and I can only say that they are very lucky to train in such a  boat. I bet they are going to win a race or two also ;-)

A delicious story regarding homologation of the first GRP boat, the"Flying Junior", back in 1961 :

"The hull was painted brown and received false wooden veneers. They put the boat to a Boatyard well known for building classic yachts. When the RiNa (Italian Naval Register) engineers were coming to the yard to homologate a big yacht, they showed to them, in an obscure corner that small dinghy, presented as a diversion from the daily work, kindly requesting them to homologate it too. Considering the Yard's fame and grappling with an important boat, those engineers didn't hang about in evaluating that "small (apparently) wooden Jewel" and so they unconsciously gave wings to that flight which has taken us so far."

http://web.tiscali.it/comaryachts/en_cantiere2.htm

Comar had started as an advanced and pioneering shipyard and was associated with the name of some of the more innovating and better XX century NA, first with Vand de Stadt and then with Jean-Marie Finot .

Comet 111

What many don't know is that Finot worked in collaboration with Vand de Stadt on one of the more famous  and first Comet boats, the 1971 Comet 910 and it seems it was the end of their relationship because both denied later the credit for having designed that boat :-). 

Comet 110 Plus

Anyway the 910 was a huge success on the race and cruising fields. The boat had a MKII, the Finot re-designed 910 plus and that hull was produced during 20 years, till 1991, a rarity in Europe. Almost 500 boats were built.

Comet 13

In the 80's Comar collaboration with Finot continued as well as the innovation. Finot designed for Comar some of the best and more interesting boats of the 80's, among them the Comet 11/111/375, 13/460 and 14/15, that were among the first production boats to incorporate Furling main and furling genoa with all commands brought back to the cockpit.

Comet 13

Comet 460

Launched in 1987, the 460, using the hull of the 13, was a very elegant boat, one that today still looks classic. 122 of them were built, a big number for what was then a "big" yacht, specially if we consider that from the previous 13 (1982) 45 boats had already been made.

On the late 90's Comar leaved Finot and started a collaboration with more classic Italian designers particularly Andrea Vallicelly (bigger boats) and Sergio Lupoli (smaller boats). The production was then more oriented towards fast but less innovative boats, boats more influenced by rating rules. 

Comet 41s

From that phase, that reaches today.,we have the Genesis 43 and the current boats with the S line (26,31,38,41,45 and the 50). Also the big RS line, also Vallicelli designed. 

But  if the contemporary Comar production is constituted by very nicely designed and good looking yachts, with great cruising interiors, that can, and have been, winning races, there is no doubt that some of the spark that had made Comar a XX century benchmark, in what regards sailboat innovation, was a bit lost in the process and today Comet even if still making great boats is not particularly noted by very innovative designs, more by well built fast sailboats designed on the "tradition", kind of classic performance cruisers.

Comet 41s

Nothing wrong with that, brands change with time and Comar is producing very nice sailboats. Whoever on the Comar case it seems that change towards a more classic approach has not been definitive. The brand is coming back to its  origins, innovating again and the first steep was towards an unexpected direction: Catamarans, kind of a first on the Italian boat building production market. They say about it:

"Comar’s 2014 begins flying the Cat banner “because they are comfortable, easy to handle and control and because we are keen on the idea of creating a multihull with a fast and aggressive profile yet maintaining the comfort below deck. We noticed an affinity in Marc Lombard’s designs with the present Comet range in production and hence collaboration with Marc seemed a natural choice for the start-up of this new range which, starting with a Comet Cat 62 will then move on to an 82’ and a 37’"

Comet cat 62

Not many images or information has been released about the new Cats that are been designed by an innovative major NA, Marc Lombard, but we know that all, except the smaller one, will be carbon boats and that they will be all very fast boats. The main dimensions of the 37 and 62 have been revealed on the Dusseldorf boat show, were some small models  have been shown.

 A comparison between the Comet cat 37 and a  famous and fast design of about the same size,  the Mahe 36 evolution from Fontaine Pajot will give us an idea of its speed potential: The fixed keel version of the Comet has more draft (1.3 to 1.1m) its bigger but lighter (4.5T to 5.0T) and also narrower 5.65 to 5.90m. The Comet has more sail (78 m2 to 70m2). 

The Mahe is a great cat and a fast one too, kind of a classic, but the Comet 37 should be faster even if I would have preferred it with the same beam as the Mahe. Upwind the difference in pointing ability will be bigger as well as the performance, specially on the 37 equipped with movable daggerboards. The daggerboards are big since the draft is 2.24m and that means that the upwind performance will be very good. The daggerboard version offers less drag too.

If we compare the 37 with a more main market cat, for instance, the Lagoon 380, that is only 25cm bigger, the difference in performance should be huge since the Lagoon weights 7.3T against the 4.5T from Comet that has slightly more upwind sail area. 

I like also the position of the steering wheels, on the side, allowing a good forward visibility.

Regarding the Comet cat 62 I can only describe it as a truly gorgeous boat and even if the 37 is unusually good looking, for such a small cruising cat, the 62 is just a beauty and certainly a very fast beauty. We have only to look at his dimensions and building file to see that: 

LOA: 18.97m LWL: 18.80m BOA: 10.23m Beam in between axes hull: 7.20m Forward freeboard: 2.20m Light Displacement: 17.00t Light CE Displacement: 18.50t Full Loaded Displacement: 25.00t Draught (board down): 3.58m Draught (board up): 1.62m Total height / Dwl: 28.70m mast Height: 26.40m .

Sail Area - Main: 130 m² - Solent selftacking: 74.5 m² - Furling genoa: 102 m² - Code 0: 130 m² - Staysail: 60 m² - gennaker: 160 m² - Spi assy: 300 m² Diesel Engines 2 x 75 HP Fresh water tanks: 2 x 600l Gas Oil Tanks: 2 x 300l carbon spars, PBO rigging and Spectra Construction Composite sandwich carbon / epoxy (Hull / Deck / Main bulkheads) crossbeam construction: composite carbon epoxy Accomodation, floorboards, furnatures: sandwich wood.

And the surprises will not end here since I have heard rumors that the monohull series, specially the middle sector, will be renovated with some new boats, not on the line with the existent ones, but something different from what the Italian market offers already. Performance cruisers, for sure but, designed also by a French NA and that means probably with a bigger influence of solo racer's design and maybe something lighter, maybe something in carbon. I can't wait to have my eyes on those designs and to know more about it ;-)

MAN OVERBOARD (MOB)

The recent incident with a MOB on the Clipper Race raised again doubts about the practicability and training in what regards recovering a man overboard. It was in plain daylight, the man went overboard near the skipper that raised the alarm immediately, the conditions were rough but far from extreme (35K), they had a full competent crew that had trained this type of situations, a professional skipper and they took one hour and a half to recover the man from the water. Unbelievable and frightening!!!

If the man went overboard in the North Atlantic he would not have survived to hypothermia. This seems not to be acceptable but previous accidents show that this is more the rule than a freak accident, I mean, the recovery time. Analyzing the situation we rapidly conclude that the main reason for the huge time they took on the recovering was due to having lost the MOB from sight. They took 1 hour and 12 minutes to find him again and about 18 minutes to recover him after that. The recovery itself was made in an acceptable time, what did not went well and could have been fatal, was that they have lost him out of sight.

 How can that have happened and how to prevent it from happening?

Losing a MOB of sight is very easy if adequate measures are not taken by the skipper. If the MOB happens on a broad reach or downwind with the boat at speed, specially if the boat is going fast (and with 35k we can assume that was the case) it is not easy to stop the boat and the natural reaction of a crew is to help with the maneuver, turning the boat as fast as they can top the wind and lowering the sails, or reducing them. This is what all will try to do if no specific orders are given otherwise and having all doing that is a massive

mistake. With the boat changing direction to take the wind out of the sails the relative position of the MOB towards the boat changes drastically and if someone takes the eyes out of the MOB, even for some short moments, it is very difficult then to know where to look to find him again and easy to get him lost.

The specific order that should be given by a skipper to a crew member, even if the crew is a small one, is that he shouldn't do anything other than to keep his eyes on the MOB and have, at all times, his arm stretched pointing to him. This will allow the crew, without asking anything, to turn the boat around on that direction and should prevent the loss of the MOB.

Regarding the physical recovery of the MOB it seems they have sent another man, hold by an halyard  and then hoist both together with the help of the halyard? or each at a time? Anyway something only possible with a big crew, the very powerful winches of a big boat and several on the side helping pulling them up.

 Unfortunately, even when the MOB is not lost of sight, sometimes, even with him attached to the boat by a tether, there have been situations when the crew was unable to pull them back on board before drowning or being killed by hypothermia. On these cases and with a small crew, the best solution in a modern boat, with an open transom or a sugar scoop transom  to secure the mob with a line and bring it to the transom, lower the stairs and help him coming in eventually pulled by the topping lift line. Even if the mob is unconscious and someone has to go to the water to help, that is the best place to put him up since with modern high freeboards on the side, that's the place where it is possible to grab someone from the water. On many modern boats that have a swim platform that is even easier, provided that too many don't go over it and exceed its max load.

Here a test by Yachting Monthly on several devices designed to help in a MOB recovery:

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More views on this subject are welcomed :-)

Mr Pelicano - TWO MOB RECOVERIES

Hi Paulo - I have been involved in two MOB recoveries in my racing career. Both occurred during spinnaker jibes, the first in the Juan de Fuca Strait, between Washington State and British Columbia, during the Swiftsure Race, the second in San Francisco Bay, immediately after the finish of a crewed Farralon Islands Race. In both cases, the boat was moving downwind very fast, and a significant gap opened up between the boat and the MOB during the time it took to drop the spinnaker, turn the boat, clear lines from the water, and start the engine. 

Fortunately, there was a dedicated person keeping their eyes on the MOB both times. However, I would say it easily took more than 30-45 minutes to recover the MOB both times; in the Juan de Fuca Strait incident, the MOB was already hypothermic and could not climb aboard the open transom on the swim ladder. Three crew had to pull him aboard by his PFD harness as he had already given up making an effort on his own. The situation was made even more dangerous in that the MOB's PFD had already auto-inflated during a very rough and wet upwind leg, so he had no floatation when he went in the water.

 In the second case, on SF Bay, the MOB tore a knee ligament when she hit a stanchion as a running back stay loaded up and tossed her overboard during the jibe. Fortunately, her PFD did inflate and the water temperature was not as cold. With 20+ knots against a strong ebb current, conditions were too rough for several smaller boats nearby to retrieve her, so she had to wait for us to motor back to her position and retrieve her over the transom. Both of these situations involved big boats (40ft and 52ft) with full crews.

 I have to confess that after these experiences I became very nervous racing offshore for a few years. As a bowman, I often found myself in risky situations - during spinnaker peels, going up the rig, head sail changes, etc., - when the boat would be surfing downwind at 14-16 knots or pounding upwind in big breeze and waves. Sometimes, hanging out at the end of the spinnaker pole or hanging from a halyard changing spinnaker sheets after a peel, it would flash through my mind that if I went in the water, the boat would travel several miles before it could be turned around, during which time I would be floating in a very cold Northern Pacific ocean, a tiny speck amid white caps and big waves. That was in 2008-2009, at which point I shifted my activities to smaller sport boats and dinghies.

 Since then, I've gotten over that period of anxiety, and am eager to go offshore again. But the whole MOB thing still makes me somewhat reluctant to take my wife or anyone else lacking in experience and a certain degree of physical fitness.

I realize, as a cruising sailor, one tends to be much more conservative and take far fewer risks than racing sailors do, whether crewed or solo. And I suspect that even when I start cruising, I'll probably tend to take more risks than I should. A lot to think about, for sure.

Great Post Pelicano, and again your experience is valuable. Regarding mine, in about 30000Nm cruising I only had two MOB and none of them was a problem. The first one was in the early 80's were I was not greatly concerned about that. A navy Sargent that took a ride on my traditional boat found out that it bounced a lot more than his Navy ship and went overboard. I think he had also drunk a bit  too much red wine at lunch. I don't remember very well except that it was fun and it was not dangerous except for the Sargent dignity. I managed to turn around quickly and pick him without even using the engine. To be truth to put that engine working it was not an easy or quick operation and the boat had only 7m even if it was an heavy one.

The second one was not a MOB but s WOB :-) and involved a 18 years friend of my daughter, some years back, in winter. I was motor-sailing with weak wind and happily it turned out to be just a funny accident. She did not panicked, we exchanged some jokes to show her that we were not worried and when I turned the boat around she asked if she could swim a bit more since the water was not so cold. That girl had some flair, she is an air hostess now.

So, as you can see no bad experiences and not too worried about that. Me and my wife are very careful about staying on the boat and use tethers in bad weather. If she goes overboard probably I will manage to get her in, if I go overboard with the boat sailing she will probably not be able to fish me out. I just accept that and act has if I was sailing solo.

Racing with the boat going very fast it is just a lot more dificult to stop the boat and turn around. The distance to the MOB will be much greater and a good look out is needed not to losing him from sight.

Probably you know this movie that it is a classic. Great crew and great recovery since it was the skipper that went overboard, but I don't see nobody with the eyes fixed on the MOB while they are maneuvering.

THE ELAN MYSTERY : 354 /360

How can the same shipyard develop two ranges so asymmetrically? The interest in having two ranges is to broader the market spectrum and therefore they should point to different clients and have very different types of boats but that is not what I mean. Many brands have this strategy, for instance Dufour or Beneteau, proposing different boats for the main market and for the ones that like more performance oriented boats or that want to cruise and occasionally race but Elan is the only one that in what regards performance boats has  a very contemporary line and in what regards main market has a very conservatively designed line.

The mystery is even bigger since both lines are designed by the same NA (Rob Humphreys) that for other brands design more modern main market cruisers. We can safely assume that it is not Humphreys that is choosing the type of boat that he is going to design but the client, in this case Elan.

It is not only the boat being conservative in what regards hull design or choice of keels it is also the strange blend to mix more conservative sail hulls with a "modern" approach in what regards aesthetics. That makes the boat look really odd, like if they were puffed and have become absurdly fat and out of proportion.

Elan promotes the 345 saying : The 354 is designed for families who are discovering the magic of sailing. Families who demand a safe and forgiving yacht which allows them to steer her easily and safely through their voyage of learning about the joys of yachting.

She benefits from the same features that set her bigger siblings apart from others, taking huge advantage of her raised deck saloon, filled with natural light, making her the most spacious yacht in her class. 

And the 360 saying : The Elan 360 has once again consolidated Elan’s reputation as a builder of exciting performance cruising sailing yachts, where neither performance, nor the cruising capabilities are left to compromise...Her wide transom, twin rudder arrangement and chined hull deliver excellent control even at high heel angles. Her T-shaped keel ensures a lower center of gravity and improved righting moment, which in turn allows for a lighter displacement than would otherwise be possible. 

The end result provides an exhilarating sailing performance, which one would usually expect only to find on much bigger boats. Maybe the best feature yet is how effortless she is to sail, even in challenging conditions.

Basically they say that one sails better than the other, that the 354 is safer and easier to sail, that none has their cruising capacities compromised, that the the 354 is more spacious and has lots of light coming from the raised deck. 

But if we look at both interiors we can see that not all they say is true: both boats have about the same beam but the 360 has all the beam brought back and that gives it not only bigger aft cabins, more central storage on the cockpit as it allows the head to be located aft (two cabin version) allowing for a much bigger and nicer saloon. That space advantage is not so evident in the 3 cabin version but any cruiser concerned with space and cruising will chose regarding this size of boats a two cabin version with more storage over a 3 cabin version.

Sure, the raised "deck saloon" will allow more light, a superior height and a view when someone is standing but the 360 has already standing  height and the increase in lighting is relative since the 360 has already plenty of light and on warm climates, particularly on the med that light can be translated in heat.

Looking at the model's names it seems that only 6 cm separates the two boats in length but that can be misleading and the real difference is 61cm. The hull length of the 354 has 9.99m and the 360 has10.60m. Both boats have about the same beam and the weight is not very different specially if we consider the 360 on the standard version with a similar draft.

It seems to me that they could have done a much better job providing a better sailing boat, not so ugly, with increased interior space advantages if they had considered for the 354 a 360 similarly designed hull, slightly beamier, with just a bit more freeboard and using an elegant "deck saloon" solution, like the one that it is used on the the RM 1060, one that would not make the boat look puffed, giving the same interior height, the same volume, lighting and views. They would also have needed to diminish the sail area, to make the boat more tame and have a torpedo keel with less draft (and more ballast).

 It almost seems that I am being radical but that was pretty much what Beneteau has made with the Oceanis 38 that is already a big sales success.

So the Mystery is: From whom is Elan designed the 354? I can only see a market conservative enough to prefer such a boat over a more modern, spacious and better performance one, the british market, but even there things are changing fast and less people are convinced about that story that a boat to be seaworthy has to do a "good" B/D ratio. The one of the 354 is 30% with a 1.60m draft in an old designed keel the one of the 360 with a 2.15m draft is only 25%, using a modern torpedo keel. 

They say that the 354 is a "safe and forgiving yacht" and comparing with what they say about the 360 one would think that the 354 has a better reserve or final stability, a safer boat in extreme circumstances but given those numbers I very much doubt that.

 On Elan site they normally post the stability curves of their boats and the one of the 360 is a very good one. They have not yet posted the one of the 354, but when they do it, will be easy to compare the reserve and final stability of the two boats and I bet that the one of the 360 would not be worst.

A last word about that "deck saloon" concept designation, one that I confess, I don't like. The blame is on Jeanneau that had true deck saloons boats (the ones with a raised saloon with a view at the height of the deck when seated on the saloon) but at some point opted to maintain the cabin configuration on a non raised saloon, increasing the height of the cabin, providing more light but only a view to the outside if one is standing. The brand is big and as they maintained the designation for the new boats that had a false deck saloon, the denomination stick, changing the meaning of the old concept. Now we have two deck saloons, the fake and the true ones :-). Now they call to the true ones, raised deck saloons. On the 35ft range there are few boats with that concept, I mean the true one, being some exceptions the Southerly 35, the Northship 36 and some more. Nice idea for a post: The true 35/36ft true deck saloons. It will come soon. ;-)