The lone Frenchman, Jean Lacombe, sailing the smallest boat in the race, the tiny plywood “Cap-Horn,” was, in fact, probably already the most experienced single hander among the 5 men who took part in the first OSTAR. Although up against more famous adventurers like Francis Chichester and Blondie Hasler, by the time the race started Lacombe had already sailed the Atlantic single-handed from East to West and back again, as well as cruising a great deal of the Eastern seaboard of the USA. He had done all this in his simple 21 ft centreboarder, Cap-Horn, designed by J-J. Herbulot as a low cost weekend cruiser.

(photo: Jean Lacombe's Cap-Horn after the 1960 OSTAR - still with race number - Jouet Cap Horn brochure)

Lacombe had actually been in New York with his boat when he heard of the race. He entered late and set sail for for the start line 3000 miles away at Plymouth to arrive 4 days after the others had departed. His participation went, therefore, almost unnoticed by the British and foreign press who had been in Plymouth covering the race preparations but had already left the scene.

Staying only long enough to fill his water tanks and buy a few provisions for the return voyage, Lacombe calmly set sail into the prevailing wind for another 3000 mile Atlantic crossing.

Lacombe's “Cap-Horn” was a compact weekend family cruiser of 21ft overall, built by Jouet, a well established boat building firm in Sartrouville, on the River Seine. It was a design that, though simple, was rather more sophisticated than the type of basic small cruising boat that was becoming popular in France in the 1950s, when the influential Glenans Sailing School began to turn out a few dozen enthusiastic young sailors every summer.

The yacht's designer, Jean Jacques Herbulot, had designed most of the Glenans school boats, so this new breed of French sailor was already programmed by training and experience to appreciate the simple rather “boxy” plywood hulls he had produced previously. The Cap-Horn, however, was not hard-chine ply-over-frame construction like most of his earlier boats. It had a nicely rounded cold moulded hull, though it retained the typically Herbulot wide, clear decks and minimal raised coachroof. The Cap-Horn is now quite a rare boat, and it's difficult to find much information about it, but, at the time it must have seemed a more sophisticated design than most others in its class.

The plywood Herbulot designs of the day, simple, compact, practical and inexpensive, were emblematic of French sailing in the '50s and early '60s. Just a year after the first OSTAR, however, France's first all-GRP production cruising boat emerged from the Jouet factory, and Cap-Horn's strong and lightweight cold moulded construction suddenly seemed old fashioned and labour intensive compared with the new high-tech material. (colour photo: the varnished hull of this 1964 Cap-Horn, recently for sale in France, has been well maintained and preserved.)

Jean Lacombe did complete that first OSTAR, finishing in last position after 74 days. He went on to take part again in the 1964 race (Tabarly's first win) in another Jouet-built boat, the Golif, a landmark (seamark?) design in French yachting history which I'll write about in another post soon

Cap-Horn built by P. Jouet & Cie, designed J. J. Herbulot

LOA 6.50m - (20.90 ft)

LWL 6.00m - (19.67 ft)

Beam 2.16m - (7.08 ft)

Draft (max) 1.20m - (3.94 ft)

Draft (min) 0.70m - (2.30 ft)

Displacement 907kg - (2000 lbs)

Links:

Italian saint-andres blog story

Some versions of the Golif were delivered with an optional deeper keel for racing performance. These boats were excellent performers in offshore races and won many prizes, but it was a perfectly standard Golif that achieved the greatest fame for the class. In 1964, Jean Lacombe who had been France's sole entrant in the 1960 Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race (OSTAR), returned to repeat the feat in a Golif, once again the smallest boat in the competition. This was the year of Eric Tabarly's first triumph, so Lacombe's achievement was rather overshadowed by the acclaim and fanfares garnered by the winner. Nevertheless, Lacombe's Golif took joint pride of place, alongside Tabarly's Pen Duick II at the centre of the 1965 Paris Boat show. (see photo)

There are varying estimates of the total number of Golifs built by Jouet and also by the Dubigeon yard in Normandy. The total number certainly comes to over 1000.

Many thanks to the French Golif owners website for all the b&w images and much of the information used in preparing this post. Colour photo of a Golif recently for sale in France from an advertisement on www.leboncoin.fr

A scanned copy of the original 1963 Jouet Golif sales brochure is available in .pdf format from Yacht Brochures.co.uk

I imagine most of the marina posing types, who could have been attracted to the stylish and comfortable interior, would run a mile from the race-bred rig with its three-spreader mast, running backstays, hydraulically tensioned standing backstay and 2 inner forestays (one is detachable to ease tacking - the two guys on the foredeck in the publicity shot below are leaning against it).

Conversely, few of the hard-core racing crews capable of handling the big rig with its huge headsails and spinnakers would be likely to appreciate all the comforts of the double beds and triplicated shower and heads compartments.

Aside from that, the marketing and management suits at Lacoste probably knew little about the unglamorous wet, cold and bruising side of yacht racing, and the salt-stained welly-boot boat jockeys at Dufour equally little about fashion marketing - in short, a perfect recipe for a marketing flop. None were built after 1992, even though the Lacoste name was dropped and the yacht was rebranded as the Dufour 42.

A pity, really, because according to the accounts of owners and crews that you can find on internet forums, the Lacoste 42 made an excellent, long-legged cruising yacht. Even now, it seems that when they do come on the market they tend to sell for very good prices.

Lacoste/Dufour 42

LOA: 42'-2"
LWL: 35'-9"
Beam: 13'-0"
Draft: 7'-6"
Displacement: 16,538 lbs
Ballast: 7,124 lbs
Sail Area: 748 sq ft

Colour image right: a very handsome Lacoste 42 recently sold by Ancasta International Boat Sales.

Plans and drawings: Sparkman and Stephens

His most famous yacht, Myth of Malham, was nominally designed by Laurent Giles, but it is no secret that Illingworth himself conceived the general outline of the boat, with its abruptly short ends, relatively light displacement and, above all, its groundbreaking rig with big masthead foretriangle and high aspect ratio mainsail. Jack Laurent Giles begged to be allowed to draw longer overhangs, but was firmly overruled. He complained that the proposed mainsail was too short on the foot and looked more like a flag than a sail, but Illingworth insisted, and Myth of Malham went on to be one of the most successful ocean racing boats of all time.

In 1950 Illingworth opened his own yacht design business, in partnership with Angus Primrose. Together they created some of the most attractive and weatherly boats of the era. Illingworth's role was to conceive the design in general, the rig, and the details of deck and interior layouts, while Primrose gave the hulls their sweet and efficient lines for speed, good seakeeping and beauty. (photo: Saba, a superb example of a counter stern Maïca)

Many of the firm's early clients were French. Illingworth spoke fluent French and loved the country. He encouraged and assisted in the founding of the enormously influential Glenans sailing school, where hundreds of young Frenchmen learned to sail – and to become instructors themselves. He was commissioned to design a yacht for the Glenans school, the building of which was put under the supervision of Philippe Harle who worked at the Glenans at the time. This experience so stimulated Harle that he immediately gave up his job at the school and set up as a yacht designer himself.

The first of what became known as the Maïca class was commissioned by French yachtsman Henri Rouault who had admired Illingworth's earlier successful racer “Belmore” and asked for a smaller version. She was built by Burnes of Bosham and launched at Easter 1960. At the suggestion of Rouault's sister, a nun, the boat was named after her convent's former Mother Superior, a decorated heroine of the wartime resistance, who was known by the nickname “Maïca”. (image: drawings for the transom stern Maïca)

The original Maïca, like the Belmore design, had a transom stern. She was so admired and so successful, winning the RORC Class III championship in 1962 that soon further examples were built in Britain and in France, but when Illingworth sold the plans for the Maïca to Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie at Cherbourg, Felix Amiot, the owner of the yard, insisted that the design should be modified with a counter stem. Apparently this was because M. Amiot wanted a Maïca for his own personal use and he preferred the elegant look of a counter stern.

So Illingworth and Primrose produced plans for a “Maïca à voûte” (counter stern) and in 1963 CMN started to build this version employing a novel method of construction that made series production viable - cold moulded mahogany. (image: drawings for the counter stern Maïca class) A first lightweight layer of 1cm planks was laid longitudinally over formers, then two diagonal layers, each 4cm thick, at right angles to each other. When the glue had cured the hull was simply lifted off the formers and turned right way up for decking and fitting out.

CMN built 38 Maïca class yachts, about half of which are known to be still sailing and in superb condition. (photo: Maïcas awaiting delivery at the CMN yard in Cherbourg) The CMN Maïcas were mostly sold to French clients, (one was ordered by the Greek ambassasor to Paris), but many went to customers from Britain and other countries. Some of these boats were among the most famous offshore racers of their day - and many were scoring notable wins even ten years after the introduction of the class

With so many international racing successes and long voyages, the class also made a name for itself in Mediterranean waters and it was not long before a couple of Italian yards obtained licences to build slightly modified versions. One Italian version, of which I believe over a hundred examples were built, was in GRP with a modified fin keel and skeg underwater profile.

(photo: The elegant stern of one of the counter stern Maïcas, recently sold by Sandeman Yacht Co.)

Links:

Class Maïca (Acknowledgements to this French website for much of the history and most of the above photos)

Saba - a French owned Maïca.

If you want to sail a Maïca, see Saba's cruising and regatta programme

The happy band of sailing men seen in the picture here are volunteers from the "Cale 2 l'Ile" association based in the French port of Nantes. The association aims to save some of France's nautical heritage by restoring and maintaining old boats.

The boat they're sitting on is one they all helped build - the St Michel II - a replica of Jules Verne's second yacht in which he enjoyed escaping from land to cruise and write his novels in peace. (The reason they're all sitting on the rail, by the way, is that they're helping the boat's designer, Francois Vivier, to measure the boat's stability.)

The 6 year project to build St Michel II was completed earlier this year and she was launched at Nantes where Jules Verne was born in 1828.

Jules Verne was, from an early age, an enthusiast for all things to do with ships and the sea. In 1865, with his books selling well, and his fortune increasing, he bought a small fishing vessel of around 25 ft at the small port of Le Crotoy at the mouth of the river Somme, and had it converted into a capable sailing yacht. Verne made many extended cruises in his little boat, becoming familiar with many ports in Northern France, the Channel Islands and parts of the English south coast. He even sailed up the Thames to London. It was on board this yacht, the St Michel, while cruising with his crewman Alexandre Delong, that Verne wrote his “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”.

In 1875 after having been elected to membership of France's premier yacht club, Verne ordered a larger 13m yacht from the Cherbourg yard of Abel Lemarchand. Although he took pleasure in working with the builder on the yacht's plans, she retained the lines and character of a traditional northern French pilot vessel. The new boat was named St Michel II and launched in 1876. Once again Verne undertook a full programme of extended cruising, along the coasts of northern france, the south of England, Brittany, and even across the Bay of Biscay to Bordeaux and back. He loved the peace and solitude he found on board his boats, and was able to write very productively while at sea, unburdened by everyday social and family matters.

After only a couple of seasons, however, the St Michel II was replaced by a magnificent steam motor-sailer of 31 metres length, the St Michel III, a vessel befitting the world's most famous author of tales of travel and adventure. This new boat required a crew of 10 men, and Verne's cruises became even longer and more extended, reaching as far as the Baltic, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Malta and Italy.

The original St Michel II was sold to the St Nazaire Pilot station where she served for many years. Later she became the supply ship for the prison on the island of Belle-Ile, off the Brittany coast. The St Michel II was eventually scrapped in 1911.

The new replica St Michel II has already taken part in a number of sailing events for classic and historic vessels around the coast of France. Her first public outing was at the famous "Semaine du Golfe de Morbihan" (Morbihan Week), a biennial boatfest which attracts hundreds of vessels of all shapes and sizes. I'm hoping to take part in the 2013 event with my own boat - if my own restoration project is complete by then.

St Michel II

LOA: 13.27m
Beam: 3.52m
Draft: 2.25m

Acknowledgements and links:

Association La Cale 2 l'Ile

Images and story sources: La Cale 2 l'Ile and Francois Vivier

Additional images: Ouest-France, Mer et Marine.com

The above, I hope, helps explain two things; why I have been too occupied to write here for a couple of months, and why I'm now writing about a Finnish boat instead of a French one.

The Swan 38 is one of my two or three favourite ever boats, and the only one I could choose for my fictional hero. If I wanted a boat I could trust to last me for the rest of my life, and to take me anywhere I desired to sail, the Sparkman and Stephens designed Swan 38 would be number one on my list. In terms of quality of build, design pedigree, strength, longevity and looks, this boat can stand comparison with any other yacht produced anywhere, at any time. But what makes the Swan 38 better, to my mind, than any other yacht of its size, is its ability to make open sea passages in all weathers, while keeping its crew comfortable, confident, and rested.

At the time of its introduction, Nautor had recently undergone a change of management, but the new owners were as determined as the founder, Pekka Koskenkylä, to build yachts of the highest quality. The 38 is no exception. It's backbone is a massive stainless steel girder, solidly glassed into the bottom of the hull. This rigid base carries the loads of the mast and of the 7000lb keel and endows the GRP hull with enormous strength and stiffness. Most of the boats were built with a teak deck beautifully laid on top of the GRP top moulding. This deck, though lovely to look at, will inevitably need replacing one day at considerable cost, and for the keen racer, its weight must be considered unnecessary. But, if you're thinking of becoming the owner of a Swan, you will probably be prepared to put up with the extra expense, every quarter-century or so, in order to be able to walk those teak planks.

No doubt experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the 38 was the first of the Swans to sport the signature, low, slope-sided, coachroof wedge which seems to grow out of the deck and merge into the cockpit coaming, and which, for a time, became a characteristic feature of the marque, until it was copied by many other designers. This feature makes the decks appear wider and allows excellent forward visibility from the cockpit.

Down below the joinery is immaculately made and polished to a cabinetmaker's finish. The Swan 38 was considered a roomy yacht in its day, and although it can't now compare for spaciousness with modern yachts of similar overall length, the hull's deep sections and relatively substantial displacement give it plenty of volume, so storage space is generous and useful.

Unlike the larger 43 of the same era, the main saloon is abaft the through-deck mast, so the social space is unobstructed. There are good seagoing pilot berths outboard of the settee berths so that the off-watch crew can sleep securely in bad weather.

Forward of the mast there is an adequately roomy WC/shower compartment to port with hanging locker and drawer space to starboard. Further forward still, the forecabin is dominated by bin stowage for the wardrobe of racing sails that a yacht of this type would have been expected to carry. Pipecots fold down over the bins when needed for harbour use. Many of the boats have now been adapted, for cruising or charter, by having this space converted into a proper cabin for two with a permanent 'V' berth.

The cockpit is comfortable but not overlarge, as in inshore racing situations most of the crew would be on deck, either perched on the weather rail or operating halyards, downhauls and winches grouped on a flat working area of the cabin roof abaft the mast. When racing or cruising offshore, only half the crew could be expected to be in the cockpit at once; the rest would be below for much of the time. There is a liferaft stowage locker to port, and a bridge deck which, together with a single shallow hatch slide, prevents water from a flooded cockpit entering the cabin.

The Swan 38 is an easy boat to sail. Her wide decks enable rapid and safe crew movement for sailhandling and harbour manoeuvres, and the simple, single-spreader rig enables her to be sailed shorthanded. Being a pedigree S&S design, she handles beautifully on all points of sailing, especially to windward, when she can be trimmed to balance perfectly with just enough weather helm for feel. Like most IOR inspired yachts of her day she can sometimes be a handful when sailing fully-powered dead downwind.

Production of the Swan 38 ended in 1979 with 116 hulls built. Today most examples will have been fitted with headsail roller reefing gear and modern electronic navigation aids. The best examples will have been professionally maintained by a top quality yard and may have new teak decks and an upgraded modern diesel. If you want one you will probably have to spend £70-100,000, but this could turn out to be an excellent investment, as prices are unlikely ever to fall below today's.

The Swan 38, in my opinion, is the best cruiser/racer ever. She may not be as fast downwind in smooth water as a some other boats of her size. She may not be as roomy as most more modern 38 footers. She won't plane on a reach at 15 knots in a 12 knot breeze like some of today's ultra-lightweight scaled-up dinghies. She is, however, one of a very few great sailing boats that can win races, cross oceans, go weekend family cruising or shorthanded passage making and can be absolutely relied on to make ground to windward in gale force wind and heavy seas when your life depends on it. As a bonus, she is strongly built and finished to immaculate standards by Nautor of Finland, a marque which, for yachtsmen of my age, carries the same exclusive cachet and promise of quality, as the Rolls-Royce brand once did for motorists.

Swan 38

Thanks to James Bull of Swan Yacht Charter for permission to use the images shown here. More photos and details of the Swan 38 "Cimaroon", available for charter, can be found at the Swan Yacht Charter website

Further links:
Article at Boats.com
Sparkman & Stephens (to view drawings and plans)