Nanuq is a 60 feet Grand Integral launched in 2014 and designed to minimize environmental impact while accommodating a crew of up to 12 in high latitudes, including during winter. Built with the same insulation standards as a passive house, one of its first scientific projects was to prove that its crew could live throughContinue reading “Insulation and ventilation”
Monthly Archives: May 2021
Heating
Winter and Northern sailing plans require lots of thinking about thermal efficiency. And since energy is one of the scarce resources on a boat, trying to limit heat loss is as much a priority as producing heat in an efficient way. When Skip Novak goes along with his Pelagic and Pelagic Australis introduction, he insistsContinue reading “Heating”
There is something about Garcia
Two brothers, Jean-Pierre and Jean-Louis Garcia, started their venture nearly 50 years ago. Specialized metalworkers at the time, they established in Normandy what would become over the years one of the most famous aluminium sailboat builders. Looking at Garcia’s homepage, with the “Nowhere you can’t go” claim, we know why a photo is worth aContinue reading “There is something about Garcia”
How many hulls is too many ?
Let’s face it, coming from a catamaran world makes it difficult to imagine a long range sailing life in a monohull. It’s a mix of habit of course, comfort as well, and safety in any kind of rough sea condition we encounter. The layout makes you feel protected from foul weather, and we’ve been sailingContinue reading “How many hulls is too many ?”
Homework
So that’s how the journey goes on: spending hours on boatyards’ website, all specializing in all-roads aluminium boats, reading blog stories of sailors commenting their choices, good or bad, taking notes of the mistakes they made and the issues they encountered, and how they overcame them. Putting quite a few new destinations on this on-goingContinue reading “Homework”
Size matter
There are quite some Aluminium boats out there especially if we include the second-hand market. From the purpose-built one-off, like Nanuq featured above, or the second-hand one which is available after a proven high latitude track record to the series some reputable yard have built for a long time, such as the legendary Ovni (AlubatContinue reading “Size matter”
Autonomy
There will be as many autonomy approaches as there are sailors to describe it. It starts with the Skipper who is able to perform any repair in any system of his boat, electrical or mechanical, all by Nigel Calder‘s finest standards. On the opposite, there would be the one who’s best ability would be toContinue reading “Autonomy”
Seaworthiness
It has been the IRC goal for thirty years to calculate how seaworthy were the boats engaged into races all around the planet. Their Safety and Stability Screening (SSS) method was define to rank all participating boats from a stability and safety perspective. The higher the SSS number is, the more seaworthy, in regard withContinue reading “Seaworthiness”
70th parallel 