Joe the Sailor

The Cannes boat show, called the Yachting Festival, is around the corner (7 to 12 September 2021). It is amply in-water and the French riviera in September is an easy sell to spend a few days 🙂 The Festival has just annouced their list of exposed boats, and this is a good occasion to just do that: dream, visit, learn.

At this stage of my long term dream, I intend to use the festival to catch up with “the latest”, build knowledge and come up with a list of the key questions that I will eventually have to answer.

My initial dream boat (/bias) goes towards:

• a truly bluewater boat
• in the 45-52ft range
• aluminium
• centerboarder monohull

This is already quite defining. In this game, Garcia, Allure, Alubat, Boreal are the obivous brands. Now, unless I missed something (see footnote *), there’s no such model on display in Cannes. I actually see it as an opportunity to challenge this bias and, for the sake of organising the visit, I plan to gradually give up my opening assumption: the time is at opening doors, not picking a winner.

The first bias I am willing to challenge is the monohull part and I absolutely want to see the Garcia 52 explocat. To me, it justifies alone the trip to Cannes (nevermind the very average picture on the festival’s site). Besides, it’s her worldwide premiere and if I ever give up my bias for monohulls, I know where my attention will go.

Then, the other bias that I am willing to challenge is the construction material. Aluminum is natually a very heavy filter and giving this one up opens up many possibilities. It pretty much comes together with giving up the centreboarder and go for an actual keel. Four boats caught my attention here:

• The Amel 50. It is a famous and very nice boat that deserves a lot of attention. And while at it, the 60ft grand sister will be there too 🙂
• Failing to be accompanied by its larger sisters, the Bavaria 42C got very much praised when released last year and certainly deserves a look.
• Elan GT6 might not be a grand cruiser but left me intrigued.
• The Dufour 530 as well might not be a grand cruiser but the pitch about merging their racing and cruising lines is certainly worth a close eye.

Giving up on the length requirement (and probably the purse to acquire them !!!), there are number of models that look completely yummy:

• The Contest55CS is a beauty, as this years European Yacht of the Year acknowledges. This is her first show in France and I can only praise a quite comprehensive presentation.
• Hallberg-Rassy 57 is, how would you say, an eye-dropper in terms of elegance, with a nordic touch?
• Not brand new (it’s a 2018 model), the Hanse 548 is another must-see.
• I’m not eager on stereotypes, but one has to reckon that the Italia Yacht 54, aside being beautiful and likely well performing, puts forward a number of design options that are rather sophisticated.
• The X5.6 seems like a must see too.
• Finally, I’m very curious about CNB66‘s selling point to be the largest sailing boat manageable in a family-type crew. I have a hard time imagining doing so with anything beyond 55ft, but I am very open to be proven wrong. (oh, and did I mention that the 76 model will be there too?)

The final category is made of the models geared up for racing / shorter journeys. I am not up to give up long distance cruising, in relative confort, but who could pass by the First Yacht 53, a Grand Soleil, the ICE 52 Rs (yes, a carbon boat!), any Swan, etc without dreaming away?

Two questions to conclude: First, did I miss anything? Second, what else did caught YOUR attention?

* Two closing remarks as a footnote.

First, to the Cannes Festival website manager: is it so hard to design better filters? Filters are scarce (why not filter by hull material, or keel type/depth?) and why put boats into fixed length categories. For example, boats are considered 10m to 15m or 15m to 20m long…. that’s not very helpful for someone looking for a 14-16m, not to mention that a 10m and 15m hardly fall in the same category :-/

Second, to the boat manufacturers themselves: why is it that X-Yachts manages to do such a nice configurator? A step lower but already better than most is Hanse 548 configurator. And while you are at it, it would be really nice to then generate a virtual visit for that particular configuration 😉 . Finally, looking at the Contest55 website: how is it that speed polars are no where to be found on most other websites? #NudgingSailingWebDesigners

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Commenting on the type of sailors found in Le Marin (south Martinique), Marie and Hervé Nieutin have this short description (Histoire de partir, page 105, own translation):

“Looking at sailors, the fauna is quite diverse. Many crews renting or charting, but as well a sizable amount of bluewater boats. One can find a French retired couple with poodle on a pristine Supermaramu, the single handed round-the-world sailor on his rusty amateur-built on a technical stop since five years, a group of young Italians on daddy’s splendid teck-decked monohull, a large Swiss family on a ketch full of flags, or a young guy refurbishing a 70’s schooner with a large grinder.”

Failing to have a rich Italian dad, and provided there’s no poodle, I could be the French retired couple.

And you, who would you be?

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Recent Posts:

• 
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  Norbert Sedlacek, Roland Jourdain and eco-sailing
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