When you decide to start a new adventure the choice of a symbolic data has its own importance.
This year 2011 offers several opportunities in this sense. So 11.1.11 looked as a nice date for me to make the final step: ORDER THE BOAT PLANS!
If you tell anyone that you intend to have a boat...
Number one they start thinking of the nice luxury yachts shown on many pubblications.
If you say that you want something personalized, made custom for you...
Strange guy, possible he did not find anything acceptable on the market?
Building one from scratch?
Definitely crazy!
This however in the final, initial, step of a long long story that took few years to evolve. Probably the entire lifetime. But to make a long story short, we go back to the fall of 2007 when, by chance, we found the blog of a couple of italians who were partecipating to the Blue Water Rally: Baby & Gian with their Shaula3.
Through sailmail we got in contact with them and kept trak of their 2 years long circumnavigation.
I guess that the idea of making a circumnavigation lies in the corner of the mind of any sailor. In my case this occassional encounteer re opened an old scar. In the early seventies I refused the offer to partecipate to the first round the world race for teams only because I would have missed a session of tests at the university. What a pity! So, the desire to finally achieve what was missing started to emerge in my mind. It would have been significantly different from the original, but the fact that two early retirees could do it on a 39ft boat was conforting. Furthermore, my partner was enthusiast of the idea and this certainly increased my determination.
SO WE NEED A BOAT.
The first visit was to Alubat, a typical boat for "tourmondiste". The visit to the shipyard was very interesting but somehow disappointing. Even Alubat was abandoning their sturdy projects in favour of boats that pursued the modern taste of a wider group of potential customers: double spade rudder and so on.
Then came META.
Moitessier, Antoine... Probably to younger people these names don't mean anything, but they are real milestones, and their boats were built by META!
So let' go to Tarare, near Lyon (France), to visit the site where these famous boats where built.
It a hangar in a nice hill countryside very close to Lyon, the high cuisine capital of France, the home of Bocuse but also of the more affordable "Bouchon", small typical restaurants.
There you can meet HIM: Joseph Fricaud, named Jo. Even if retired form the business and not driving a Lamborghini anymore, he cannot stay away from the "chantier naval" where he spent his life. He is an incredible person that spreads enthusiams just by talking to him few minutes.
The same cannot be said about Patrick, his former chief "ouvrier" who took over the business, and is keeping alive this myth of boat construction.
TWe also met exceptional people like Jean Pierre Brouns, the Architect. Very humble, friendly, competent, passionate and keen to explain and answer even to the more obvious questions.
He presented us his new project the GT 40. Globe Trawler 40 ft. A sturdy "biquille" that looked as an upside down whale.
The boat was impressive for its robustness. Hand rails in aluminium tubes, no stringers or frames only thick "Strongall" aluminium.
I have seen few years ago one of these Meta boats, a small 30 ft, hitting a concrete pontoon and making a hole in it without any damage to the boat. No doubts about strength. Beauty? Well you have to get accustomed and you will start liking it.
This was the prototype boat n 1. Let's see how it floats and we will decide!
Meanwhile we continued visiting the Genoa expo... Paris...
Look who we met here! Antoine himself
And finally she was sailing: Corto the name from the italian cartoon Corto Maltese january 2010
By the way: we had already decided we wanted a deck-saloon.
Despite some theoretical disadvantages, like heat, we believe that if you want to live on a boat one should be able to "see" outside and not have that "cave" effect of going down the companionway.
Beautiful copkit!
Every small detail has been carefully and very functionally designed.
But you can meet famous sailors. Here Hakim Rahmoun the owner of the Olbia, the interior fitting shipyard for Meta, with Eric Brossier and France Pinczon du Sel, the couple from Circumpolaris.
And so? What was wrong with this boat?
Nothing really. Despite some discussion about the fact that it looked like a "tank", with a military look we loved it.
But we had some doubts on the double keel and double spade rudder. These were in contrast with the rest of the construction. And it looked a little too small. 40ft for a couple should be enough, but, you know, a boat is never big enough, and she is always too big!
But the final disappointment came from META. They really ask too much for what they give. Now that I am in the autoconstructioon, I know the prices of every material and manpower. For a flat plate, multichine, no frames construction they really asked too much. And more the attitude "take or leave" for me always means leave. I am really sorry because we left some of our heart on that project and de JeanPierre and Hakim were on the contrary very nice people. But life goes on.
CHAPTER 2. Davide Zerbinati
He became a key to the second phase. Being disoriented and a little bit disappointed I called him in the spring of 2010.
Davide is an engineer who makes his living from his passion. Very lucky guy.
www.zerbinatidesign.com
He reassured me on the possibility of auto construction, and he will support the me in the different phases of the project.
It is him who introduced me to the world of autoconstruction that regarding projects has basically 3 names:
Bruce Roberts
Van de Stadt
Dudley Dix
Any of these has his peculiarity. After throughout reading, visiting all forums possible, visiting Davide, making considerations on costs and difficulty, limiting the choice to Pilot House.....
Chapter 3. Dudley Dix
After all this a very classical design the Dix 43 Pilot House attracted us
The boat looked classical enough, but modern and with elegant design. Like someone said "life is too short to live on an ugly boat" or something like that, forgive me the citation.
Also from the structural point of view the 43PH is significantly different from a Vickers 45. If you look ad the specifications it should be a boat for heavy weather but with decent performance in the light wind of the Med.
The size was in the range that interested us, manageable for a crew of one or two, and a pilothouse that did not compromize the still sleek appearance of the boat.
So here we are back to today I have ordered the boat plans that should be delivered to us in a couple of weeks!
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