Sorry had a post almost done when I received an email to do a weather routing through the convergence zone.
A bit of history. My wife and I are old Yankee New Englanders who have sailed from when we were small kids. Being yankee we are also very traditional when it comes to boats. That was until our last crossing of the Pacific starting in 2007 in our Mason 44. In the S. Pacific we started seeing these aluminum centerboard, mostly Ovni's and Garcias cutter rigs. On board were French cruisers with if I might say,"shat eating grins" on their face. They were coming back from Antartica , sailing to atolls we could only sail by because we had too much draft. But always in love with their boats. Those boats for their size were fast but comfortable, one can throw out all the old math for waterline and stability. Both my wife Tracy and I started to see something new, something to understand and research, something we N. Americans were not hearing much about.
We sold our Mason in NZ because our kid wanted to go to High school and not be home schooled anymore. As he was about to graduate and get kicked out of the house my wife mentioned we should get a new boat instead of a used boat. And that it better be a French aluminum centerboard design. Wow what a lucky man I am, eh! We did our research on the Ovni and Garcia and a few others. Then a cruising friend who himself was looking for something in the same lines mentioned Boreal. There was not much information, same as there is now but there was something I really liked about the design, Function and Form.
I contacted all the yards and gave them my sad story about selling our last boat and looking for a new one. I heard back from Boreal and they loved the old yankee designs and thought I would love to see and sail something new and amazing. They invited me over but said I needed to stay for a week so I could not only understand the boat but also how they build them. So I went.
So that started a damn good friendship and business association. On my last day I simply shook hands with Jean-Francois Delvoye, the designer of the Boreal 44 and Jean-Francois Eeman his business partner and told them to build me a boat just send me the paperwork.
That is how it started. We have been very happy over the first year of building, don't get me wrong we have our disagreements but easily solved with real discussion on boat design. Remember Function/form is what it is about. ...
he first thing that caught our interest in the Boreal 44 was the dog house. Fully watertight with a 360 degree view for bad weather and night watches. Even in the tropics we have found that late nite early morning watch cool and wet on a 25 kts beam reach. The dog house is set up with a chart table big enough to lay 2/3 size charts out flat. There is room for two to sit in the doghouse and there is room for most of your electronics. Also a place for the epirb and ditch bag.
Next thing was hull design: With the aluminum chine hull, the centerboard and the two dagger boards which give this cutter rigged boat great stability in sailing a strait line. We figure that we are going to come very close on a lot of days to 200 miles. Reason is the modern hull design and shape and those dagger boards. As most of you who own a true cutter rig you know the wobble where the stern seems to be moving starbord and port. Looking at your wake you see your not sailing perfectly strait. But on the Boreal put the lee dagger board down and the boat tracks true. While on a trial sail we didn't do anything special in trimming sails and I left the helm un attended for 45 minutes and the boat sailed perfectly strait in 15 kts of wind on a beam reach then tried a broad reach. If you put the auto pilot on and set a course then just sit around and watch the DC amp meter needle, it just does not move, the auto helm is not using much juice if any. I realize we didn't have big seas but still that is an astounding accomplishment in boat design in my opinion. I'm looking forward to see how the Wind Pilot self steering will work. We will be the first Boreal to have anything but auto pilot, the designer thinks I'm crazy to be putting one on his boat as there is little stress on the auto pilot.
Next on our list was storage. I hate anything on deck on passage, at a marina or at anchor. With the Boreal there is never a need to keep anything you don't want on deck there. The large lazzerette in the stern fits the inflatable and the outboard. No I can't have a hard rib any more and I'll miss that but at least I do not have to ever do a long passage with the rib on deck and an outboard on the back stanchion. Cabin storage is perfect and easy to get to. Our Mason had 87 total lockers of all sizes, the Boreal I do not think has that many but I believe it may have as much storage space....
There have been many great and you can say famous sailors who have had the chance to sail the Boreal and swear it is the best boat of this kind they have ever sailed. There are great stories on Attainable Adventure Cruising on the Boreal and the experts there are very impressed. Also maybe soon a very famous sailor, a true hero in his/her country may be ordering a Boreal 44. I will not mention name for privacy.
I want everyone to know that as great as this boat is there are compromises just like on any cruising boat. But one nice thing is the entire team at Boreal is interested on making things better and some times less French as they now have customers from all over the world.
More reasons we picked the Boreal over the Allures as both are strong tough boats but we felt the Boreal was a little more what we call industrial and we could work with the designer to customize.
If you look at the cleats on deck between the two boats there is a major difference. The Allures are more standard design that you see on most sailboats. They are also through bolted because of fiberglass deck. On the Boreal the cleats are welded not only to the aluminum deck but have struts under neath and those are welded to deck and hull on the inside. They are also big enough to take a two inch line. That is something we see in far off places when you have to tie with a commercial fishing vessel or a stone pier. We had Boreal design a Sampson post for our bow, again it will come in handy in out of the way places. I wish boats would still put Sampson Posts on boats that are going off shore.
We are also having a one inch high aluminum rib around the front and sides of all are deck hatches for protection. Again an old idea that is important to extreme conditions and use, just not seen anymore. We will also go with Goiot Hatches much stronger and safer than Lewmar hatches. No plastic locks or handles.
Please ask questions if you have any. If I can answer your questions I will.
I know, I know! I'm obsessed with our new boat but how can I not be we are getting so close to June sea trials and putting everything in order to go cruising again.
..
