In the past 50 years, the cruising scene has undergone major changes in boat design, performance, building material, electronic equipment, aids to navigation, and communications, as well as greatly improved weather forecasts. Jimmy Cornell has witnessed all these changes on his five Aventura boats, the first launched 50 years ago in July 1974. We asked him which changes he considers to be the most significant.

No aspect of long-distance cruising has seen a greater improvement than safety. I still shudder when I remember the sleepless nights and constant worry about the safety of my family during our world voyage from 1975 to 1981. I doubt that anyone used to satellite navigation can imagine the anguish of sailing through areas of known dangers using systems that had little changed since the days of Capt. Cook. 

We reached the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal in late 1976. Then, rather than take the traditional route to French Polynesia via the Galapagos Islands, we detoured to Peru to visit the home country of Paddington Bear, my children’s much-loved fictional character. This detour morphed into a daredevil land expedition that took us from the Inca vestiges in the High Andes to the carnival in Rio de Janeiro to the Iguazu waterfalls in Argentina. Back on Aventura, we sailed to Easter Island, Pitcairn and Mangareva in the Gambier Islands. 

From there, our passage to Tahiti had a complication. In those days, France was conducting nuclear tests on the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, and we had to obtain permission from the French authorities for the passage to Tahiti. I was alarmed to see that the allowed route had to clear the prohibited area by 50 miles. 

It cut across the southern Tuamotus and past the uninhabited atolls of Maria, Tureia and Vanavana, in an area aptly called “the dangerous archipelago.” No deviation was allowed. We simply had no choice.

Maria is 90 miles from Mangareva, so we left late in the day. We planned to sail during the night in open waters and pass the atoll in daylight. 

At daybreak, I was shocked to see Maria’s low profile peeping over the horizon several miles behind us. We had gained some 20 miles on our estimated position, driven by a swift northwest-­setting current. It was 150 miles from our current position to Tureia, and 30 more miles to Vanavana.

At that point, my astronavigation had become reasonably accurate. When the conditions were right, I was able to work out our estimated position within 5 miles of our actual location. However, a single sight allowed for only a position line to be drawn on a chart, with the location of the observer being anywhere on that line. Therefore, a second sight had to be taken later, so the actual location would be at the intersection of the two plotted lines. 

The easiest way to obtain an accurate position was to take a noon sight about five minutes before the sun reached its highest point above the observer (meridian passage), and then take a second one five minutes later. 

We didn’t have an accurate timepiece on board, so whenever I took a sextant sight, I started my stopwatch. I then switched on our short-wave radio receiver and tuned in to the WWV station frequency, which regularly broadcast the hour and minute in Coordinated Universal Time.

Throughout the day, I kept taking sights. By nightfall, I reckoned we had some 100 miles of open water ahead of us. This gave us a safety margin of about 90 miles, after allowing for an estimated 2.5-knot current at a speed of 5 knots through the water.

My main concern was that, pushed by a strong current, we could easily cover that distance in the 12 hours of darkness. 

At such times, we depended entirely on classic dead-reckoning navigation. Every hour, I wrote down in the logbook the course steered and the distance covered. The latter was based on the readings provided by the trailing log. This consisted of a four-blade propeller attached by a long line to a counter fixed on the stern of the boat. The counter indicated our speed through the water, which allowed me to calculate our estimated speed and the distance traveled since the previous reading. 

During the squally night, the overcast sky made it impossible to take any star sights, so I tried to slow down by reducing sail, but in the 20- to 25-knot wind, it didn’t make much difference. I spent a gut-wrenching night peering blindly ahead into the darkness and listening for the boom of the swell breaking on a windward reef. 

Just as dawn started lightening the eastern horizon, I glimpsed straight ahead of us, at less than half a mile, the telltale white line of breakers. Tureia. 

I disengaged the self-steering gear, ­altered course to port, and steered Aventura at a safe distance off the southern edge of the atoll. It looked much smaller than I expected, but I thought it might be an optical illusion. A couple of hours later, when the sun was high enough to take a sight, I managed to work out our approximate position.

It was a shock to realize that the atoll we had just passed had, in fact, been Vanavana. The much-stronger current than I’d anticipated had pushed us much farther west. We had passed Tureia in the dark without seeing it, a discrepancy in my estimation of some 40 miles.

Another 10 minutes of darkness, and we would have been wrecked on Vanavana’s windward reef. Even now, with the benefit of hindsight and much better charts, I find it impossible to believe that we covered so much ground during the night, unless we had been driven by a 4-knot current. 

We reached Tahiti without any further excitement and spent a delightful time exploring the picturesque Society Islands. Then we enjoyed a leisurely cruise through the Cooks and Tonga. By the time we reached Fiji, the anchorage off its capital, Suva, was full of cruising boats preparing to sail south to spend cyclone season in New Zealand. The motley collection left me wondering where all those yachts advertised in glossy magazines and exhibited at boat shows were. Certainly not there.

Still, it was an opportunity to find out more about boaters’ views on essential aspects of cruising. I prepared a questionnaire and visited the boats in my dinghy. Only boats that had been cruising for at least three months were included. Most had been sailing much longer. Three were completing a circumnavigation, and one was on its second. The average length of their current voyage was 2.6 years, and the average miles sailed was 14,800. With an average sailing experience of 13.8 years, their observations gave considerable authority to the survey results. 

There was, however, one aspect that I found surprising: watchkeeping. By their own admission, 17 skippers kept no regular watches. The crew went to sleep on ocean passages and kept only “loose” watches at other times. 

This relaxed attitude probably explained why only 40 boats had an inflatable life raft. The remaining owners claimed to have other arrangements prepared in case of an emergency: Ten planned to use their inflatable dinghy, of which seven were kept permanently inflated on passage, and three were fitted with carbon-dioxide bottles for rapid inflation. A further eight intended to use their hard tender, three of which were fitted with mast and sail. The remaining four told me that they had no intention of abandoning their boat.

Unfortunately, in those pre-GPS days, boat losses were a regular occurrence in the South Pacific. Looking back, I can only describe our willingness to accept such risks as fatalism: If something is going to happen, it will happen anyway. If you wanted to explore the world, then you had to be prepared to take risks, and most of us did. 

In a follow-up survey, I investigated 30 cases that resulted in 23 total losses and eight near losses. Among the former, five boats and their crew disappeared while on passage. Three of those tragedies happened during a cyclone. The cause of the other two is unknown. A further two boats were lost after collisions with ­unidentified objects at night, but their crew managed to save themselves. This was also the case of the two boats that were lost after colliding with whales. 

The crews of three boats that were lost when they ran aground on a reef at night also survived, as did those of the three boats that broke up when their boats were driven ashore during cyclones. The crew survived in all other losses or near losses.  

Keeping In Touch

Offshore communication has also ­enormously improved the safety and enjoyment of long-distance cruising in the past half-century. 

My first Aventura did not even have a VHF radio. During our 28-day transatlantic passage in 1976, we had no means of communicating with our family other than sending a telegram after landfall. 

Among the 62 boats in the South Pacific survey, half had long-range radios (23 had ham radios and eight had single-­sideband sets). The other half, mostly the non-American ones, had no radio transceivers, except a few who had VHF radios. In those days, ham radios were the only practical answer for offshore communications because marine single-sideband sets were prohibitively expensive. 

Email didn’t exist, and receiving and forwarding ordinary mail caused more headaches than anything else. General delivery was the most used receiving address, but it was also possible to have mail sent to the address of the local port captain, a local bank or an American Express agency. 

Arranging an international bank transfer was often a real nightmare too. Nearly half the participants in the South Pacific survey (30) carried all their money in cash.

If something is going to happen, it will happen anyway. If you wanted to explore the world, then you had to be prepared to take risks, and most of us did.

While some of the findings of that early survey might no longer be of much interest, some subjects are still relevant. So I did another survey. I interviewed 65 sailors who had completed a world voyage or were preparing to leave on one soon. Among them, 26 had completed at least one circumnavigation and a further 18 were close to closing the loop. 

One aspect that has dramatically changed over the years is the average length of cruising boats. The 65 boats in the new survey had an average length of 49.1 feet, a considerable increase from the average length of 39.2 feet in the South Pacific survey.  

Two other significant changes are rigs and hull material. In the South Pacific survey, half the boats (31) were one-masted, among which 19 were sloops and 12 were cutters. Among the two-masted boats, 27 were ketches, three were schooners, and one was a yawl. 

And now? Among the 65 boats in the new survey, there was only one ketch. All the others were one-masted, the majority having some kind of two-foresail arrangement, although few could be described as proper cutters. 

As for hull material, in the South Pacific survey, 33 boats had a fiberglass hull, 15 were wood, five were steel, four were ­plywood, four were ferro-cement, and one was aluminum. In the new survey, 26 boats were FRP, 17 were composite, 17 were aluminum, three were steel, and two were plywood.

Not surprisingly, monohulls were the vast majority (57) in the South Pacific survey, with five trimarans and zero catamarans. Monohulls continue to be in the majority today, with 43 among the boats in the new survey, along with 21 ­catamarans and one trimaran. 

Consumption and generation of ­electricity are also notable. In the South Pacific survey, 48 boats used their main engine as the primary source of generation, 12 had a diesel generator, 15 had a portable gasoline generator, two had a towing generator, and two had solar panels. 

 Today, only two boats in the new survey relied entirely on their engine for generating electricity, while 11 owners—who described their engines as their primary source of generation—also used other means. Solar panels were the primary means of generation on 22 boats, with 15 among them obtaining more than 80 percent of their electricity from that source. A total of 37 boats were equipped with diesel generators, but they were the primary source of generation on only seven boats. The number of hydrogenerators was surprisingly small, but the 14 owners who had them were pleased with their performance. Even lower was the number of wind generators, at 11, which is probably explained by their poor performance when sailing downwind. 

By comparison, in the South Pacific survey, only four boats were using renewable sources of energy, whereas 54 of the 65 boats in the new survey produced more than half (52 percent) of their electricity needs from solar power. An additional 14 percent was produced by hydro and wind power. That’s what I call progress. 

One area where the South Pacific predecessors were far ahead of the current generation was the extensive use of wind-operated self-steering gears. Among the 62 boats in the South Pacific survey, 42 had wind self-steering gear, 28 had an autopilot, 14 had both, and six had neither. In the new survey, 16 boats had a wind self-steering gear and all had an autopilot, with several having a second autopilot as a backup. 

Communications

In the new survey, all boats had some kind of satellite communications on board. More than half used Iridium Go! and PredictWind forecasts. Among those who wanted instant voice-communication capability, the Iridium satphone was preferred, as it also allowed for less-expensive text messages to be sent or received. The days of SSB radio seem to be numbered; there were only three boats that had this useful and virtually free means of communications—for both voice and email. 

The arrival of Starlink and its instant popularity among cruising sailors may herald the most significant development on the world cruising scene since GPS. The completion of my latest round-the-world rally, the World Odyssey 500, in late June gave me an opportunity to interview the 10 finishing crews about their three-year circumnavigations. With one exception, all had upgraded to Starlink as soon as it became available. They were all ecstatic about the contribution that Starlink had made to the enjoyment and safety of their voyages.

I was also curious about the kind of receptions they had received from local people along the rally route. The sailors said they were warmly welcomed everywhere, and many admitted that interactions were better than expected, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. In most places, the locals were pleased to welcome cruising boats again. 

It makes me very happy to say that, at least in that respect, nothing about cruising has changed.

The post For the Greater Good: 50 Years, Going Boldly appeared first on Cruising World.

Supersede has launched the world’s first 1:1 marine-grade plywood replacement in an effort to safekeep the environment and meet consumer needs.

The Phoenix, Arizona-based company aims to replace conventional wood-based building materials with its sustainable products. Its Supersede Marine Board is 100 percent recyclable, waterproof, rot-proof and does not splinter or split.

A news release from Supersede stated that the Marine Board is an engineered extruded sheet crafted from plastic waste that is modern, scalable and cost-effective. The announcement comes as traditional plywood prices remain one-third higher than in 2019, following pandemic-related supply chain challenges.

“While marine-grade plywood has been in use for decades, the unreliability of its supply chain, its non-durability, and its potential risk to human and environmental health makes the plywood market—worth $31.5B in the US alone—ripe for transformation,” the release stated.

Supersede’s manufacturing and engineering process eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs), adhesives and waste from the equation. The release stated that one tree is saved for every 72 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood displaced.

“Boat manufacturers and their insurers have more experience than almost anyone with the headaches of plywood—from the persistent challenges associated with inconsistent performance, warping and splinters, to extensive maintenance, high costs, and little peace of mind,” said Supersede CEO Sean Petterson, in the release. “We have created the first modern breakthrough addressing these issues with the Supersede Marine Board, a true 1:1 replacement to marine-grade plywood that has all the attributes boat manufacturers look for: a durable, reliable and affordable solution that is non-hazardous, environmentally sustainable, and always consistent. This isn’t just an upgrade to the legacy plywood industry—it’s a long overdue leap forward.”

Supersede won the IBEX Innovation Award for Boatbuilding Methods and Materials for the company’s innovative solution. Starting in the boat manufacturing industry, Supersede plans to expand its services to manufacturers of modular homes, RVs and trailers as well.

“Supersede is currently in the testing and commercialization phases with several leading boat manufacturers who have expressed interest in using the Marine Board,” Supersede COO Jordan Darling told Cruising World in an emailed statement. “We will share additional details in the coming weeks and months.”

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It all happened because of what Steve Brodie describes as “a moment of weakness.”

His background was in commercial construction, mostly building primary schools, university buildings and churches. He had also worked in marine archaeology, diving on historical wrecks from the 16th century, Civil War and World War II. But by 2007, Brodie was once again looking for something new to do. He had young children at home in Washington, North Carolina, and he liked the idea of staying in the marine industry, but he wanted to be with his family at night instead of trotting all around the globe.

Brodie’s path ended up crossing with that of Pacific Seacraft, a boat brand that had got its start in 1975 in Southern California. Back in the day, self-taught designer Henry Mohrschladt had teamed up with builder Mike Howarth to create the company, which focused on smaller offshore sailboats. In the 1980s, noted designer William Crealock had started sketching the Pacific Seacraft models. “He designed everything from the 24 up through the 44,” Brodie says, noting the particular success of the 37. “These are all fiberglass boats. They’re molded hulls, molded decks, partially molded interior components—but a lot of custom woodwork in all of the boat interiors.”

The company did well in California, eventually growing to about 150 employees and building dozens of boats a year, Brodie says. But then, Pacific Seacraft went through a series of ownership changes after Mohrschladt and Howarth left to create what would become sport-fishing boat brand Cabo. By 2006, Pacific Seacraft was in bankruptcy. 

In 2007, there was an auction for the assets—all of the molds, tools and the like. Brodie, in that self-described moment of weakness, bought the more than 20 truckloads of items and proceeded to move the company across the country to the East Coast.

“We found a facility here in Washington, North Carolina,” Brodie says. “It’s a giant industrial building that at one time was a yarn-production facility, a textile facility. We’re in 60,000 square feet in the back of that building.”

Today, Pacific Seacraft is a lot smaller than it was in its heyday on the West Coast, but it’s still turning out models that fans of the brand love, and its craftsmen are making occasional yet meaningful improvements to those original designs. The range of new builds runs from 31 to 61 feet at price points from about $600,000 to $3.5 million, Brodie says, and the yard does a lot of refit work. 

Earlier this year, there were three new boats and about a dozen refits on the shop floor. Some of the owners doing business with the yard had been coming back to the brand for decades.

“A lot of our customers have stepped up from boat to boat to boat. One of the first boats that we did here in North Carolina was a 34 for two local doctors, and this was their fourth new Pacific Seacraft,” Brodie says. “We’re still offering most of the models that were being built in the later years in California, but we’re really trying to put more of a focus on larger boats.”

The improvements that Brodie and his team have introduced to the classic models came from lessons they learned in refitting the original hulls. 

“That’s something that Pacific Seacraft was not doing in California,” he says. “We learned a lot about the things that worked and the things that didn’t work. The boats had always been really well-built, so most of the changes we made were subtle. Some of them, you wouldn’t even notice on the surface.”

One example is that the yard started building the hulls in 100 percent vinylester resin to protect against osmotic blistering. Earlier versions had a layer of vinylester resin, “but we took it the whole way,” Brodie says. 

Another example is modernizing the fit-and-finish on interior woodwork, such as exclusively using hard-panel headliners instead of the soft-vinyl variety. “That was partially aesthetics, and partially to improve access to wiring runs and backing plates for deck hardware,” Brodie says. 

Yet another example is switching from 304 stainless to 316 stainless for all exterior and structural metal components. Previously, equipment such as chain plates had been fashioned by punching them out, making the final versions inconsistent. “Now we have a CNC waterjet that cuts out all of those components,” Brodie says.

Higher-end plumbing fixtures, Corian countertops, standardized undermounts—all of it makes the classic Pacific Seacraft 37 about an $800,000 build today, depending on the options an owner selects. 

And the brand keeps finding new fans, including on YouTube, where a couple posting as Sailing Project Atticus have been documenting life aboard their 1997 Pacific Seacraft 40. The channel has more than a quarter-million subscribers. 

“They’ve brought a lot of attention to the brand,” Brodie says. “They bought a boat that we’d done some work on here.”

Pacific Seacraft’s team has also been doing custom work at bigger lengths overall, and Brodie is developing a pair of catamarans—a 52 and a 38—with Josh Hodgson, owner of Anchor Yachts in Rhode Island. Those multihulls are being sold under the brand name Razor Cats.

“We learned a lot about the things that worked and the things that didn’t work. Most of the changes we made were subtle. Some you wouldn’t even notice.” 

“It’s definitely the fastest-growing segment of the sailing market. In fact, it’s probably the only growing segment of the sailing market,” Brodie says of the catamarans. 

There’s certainly a good amount of competition in that multihull arena, he adds, but he struggles to name a competitor to the Pacific Seacraft hulls that are still in demand after nearly a half-century on the water. What’s coming out of his yard in North Carolina is a combination of classic design and modern construction with an unusual amount of staying power.

“Most of our direct competitors are gone,” Brodie says. “The one that we competed most directly with, head to head, was Valiant Yachts. Another was Cabo Rico. There’s really nobody else who’s building anything that’s quite like ours. I’m not sure what that says about us.”

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Concept Yachts is marking one year since it purchased Southerly Yachts near Southampton in the UK, bringing superyacht standards to the build process with an increased use of infusion in the lamination process, millimeter-accurate fit-out with a milling machine and 3D printer, and a more modular approach to interior fit-out.

In fact, semi-bespoke runs have already happened for two of Southerly’s most popular models: the 420 and 480.

Both models have Southerly’s signature swing keel system, which reduces draft. Combined with a twin rudder arrangement, this keel system allows the yachts to access the shallowest of anchorages, and to dry out on their own bottoms in tidal areas.

The keel system also can give the yachts a relatively deep draft with weight distribution in the fin. This allows the boats to hold sail in strong conditions and point high.

The swing keel can also be semi-raised to improve performance downwind when sailing transoceanic itineraries with the trade winds.

Both the 420 and 480 are raised deck saloon models. The 420’s standard layout has forward and aft full-beam ensuite staterooms. Southerly also offers the 420 with a three-stateroom layout: two staterooms forward with a shared head, and the ensuite master aft.

Southerly’s 480 has a standard layout with an ensuite owners’ stateroom aft. A twin-bunk stateroom is immediately aft on the port side with a shared head.

In 2025, Southerly Yachts will celebrate its 50th birthday—and is planning to launch an anniversary edition flagship model as part of the festivities.

“Southerly Yachts is going well,” Concept Yachts’ CEO and founder Kevin Viles stated in a press release. “We are fully up and running and onto our fourth customer within a year of taking over the company.”

Will Southerly Yachts have a display at this fall’s Southampton Boat Show? Yes. Showgoers will be able to make appointments to visit the build facility in Marchwood to see a three-stateroom 420 under construction.

Where to learn more: go to southerly-yachts.com.

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The team of craftsmen at Rockport Marine in Rockport, Maine, has reached a significant milestone with its 95-foot sailing yacht Project Ouzel, raising and inverting the hull in a Travelift, and then rolling the hull back into the shop to begin work on the interior components.

“We planned for this carefully, and there were no surprises other than some light snow,” Sam Temple, president of Rockport Marine, stated in a press release. “It’s not the first time we’ve done this operation, but Ouzel is certainly on the larger end of the spectrum for us. I’m happy to say it all went smoothly.”

The hull is designed by Langan Design Partners. It is built of cold-molded Douglas fir, western red cedar, and carbon fiber over a male building jig.

“This process certainly marks the passing of an important milestone,” Peter Wilson, co-founder of Marine Construction Management and the owner’s representative, stated in the press release. “Even though Rockport Marine has their systems well dialed-in, there is always some element of trepidation when turning a large hull. My congratulations go out to Sam Temple and the team at Rockport: one big step.”

Langan Design’s Tom Degremont added: “The process of flipping the hull requires precision and careful coordination. It highlights the attention to detail that Rockport Marine brings to every aspect of the build. In addition to the technical achievement, it is the first time we all see the yacht right-side-up and outside—as there isn’t much room left inside the building to stand back and appreciate her scale and lines. She has given us all a stunning first impression.”

The next step in Project Ouzel’s construction is to prepare the inside of the hull for the composite structural grid that will transmit the keel loads into the hull. Once that is complete, the shipyard will start the systems layout, install the main engine and associated machinery, and prepare for the interior components designed by Mark Whiteley Design. Many of those interior components are already under construction.

The yacht’s deck is being built too, and is expected to be installed later this year. Because of Project Ouzel’s size, the hull and deck will be joined outside and brought back into the building to complete the build.

Project Ouzel is expected to be completed and launched in 2025.

For more information about Rockport Marine, visit rockportmarine.com.

For more information about MCM, visit mcmnewport.com.

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Fields of wildflowers and snowcapped peaks greet a visitor to the headquarters of Elan Yachts, a division of the Slovenian manufacturing company whose skis and snowboards are known worldwide, and which also manufactures components for wind turbines and sports-stadium equipment. It’s a setting that would be picture-perfect for a production of The Sound of Music, but a boatbuilding mecca? Well, actually, that works too.

Elan began life during World War II as a shop that turned out skis for Yugoslavian troops fighting in the mountains surrounding its facility located in Begunje na Gorenjskem, a small town near the city of Ljubljana. Production continued after the war as the wintertime alpine vacation industry took off, and in 1949, the company began to build canoes and kayaks, in part to keep its craftsmen busy year-round.

Then, with the adoption of fiberglass, Elan began building larger power- and sailing yachts. Today its sailboats range from 30 to 50 feet and include the E and S series of performance boats; the Impression line, which caters to both the recreational and charter industry; and its new GT5, the first model in a new luxury-cruising range. Rob Humphreys, and Humphreys Yacht Design, has been the company’s longtime exclusive designer.

For much of its life, Elan was state-owned, but in 2015, the company was privatized and sold to investors Merrill Lynch International and VR Capital. This past year, the new owners brought former Hunter Marine president John Peterson aboard to run the marine division, and a decision was made to once again focus on the North American market, where Elan had begun to make inroads with its boats before the economic downturn a decade or so ago.

Elan’s two oldest divisions — its skis and sailboats — and its wind components are built side by side on a 100-acre site that’s home to a sprawling collection of buildings, some of which date back to the war years, in various stages of renovation. Such an eclectic heritage has its benefits and challenges, Peterson noted as we toured the plant one day this past spring. Boatbuilding competitors in France have factories designed for building yachts. Elan’s began with skis, and boat production sheds sprang up around them. On the plus side, many skills have been shared over the evolution of the products.

In total, Elan employs about 700 people at the Slovenia site. Peterson said 125 of these workers are boatbuilders and another 75 work on wind components, though there is a good deal of overlap between the teams when it comes to composites. At the peak of the boating market, Elan produced close to 300 sailboats annually. In 2016, 80 boats were built, but Peterson predicts that number will increase by 30 percent annually in the near term as marine markets rebound.

Like its buildings, Elan Yachts’ production methods are a mix of old and new. Hulls and decks are infused using state-of-the-art technology that’s shared with the wind division. In the wood shop, some parts are cut by CNC machine, while others, such as teak decks, locker lids, and even whole head and galley modules, are put together by craftsmen, most of whom have worked their way up as they gained skills in-house.

“We are the school,” Peterson said when asked about worker training.

Visiting French and German boat factories, one’s struck by the machinery; at Elan, it’s the people who stand out. Women and men were present in seemingly equal numbers, and those not wearing protective coveralls all wore company shirts. Employees get 25 days’ vacation a year, and lunch is served on-site daily in the company cafeteria.

Walking from one building, where we watched a deck being lowered onto a waiting hull, we entered an adjacent shop where women were inspecting skis and sharpening edges on a large grinding machine. Throughout the plant, every request for a photo was greeted with a smile. An on-site company retail store sells a range of skiing and sporting goods.

The night before our factory tour, we visited the nearby resort village at Lake Bled. It was early in the season, so the waterside restaurants weren’t too crowded, and our visit included a stop at Bled Castle, a towering fortress that dates back to 1011.

Castles, skis, yachts — why not?

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The warm Agulhas Current puts our Gulf Stream to shame. Flowing southbound out of the Indian Ocean and down through the Mozambique Channel, it attains an astonishing 6 knots by the time it crowds in close to the craggy South African coast. Beyond that current lie the Roaring 40s and the Southern Ocean, and beyond them, Antarctica. Three ocean systems, very warm and very cold, clash here, spinning off a regular train of gales that come crashing into the current.

Several years ago, Duncan Lethbridge was delivering one of his new St. Francis 50 catamarans along South Africa’s Wild Coast with a novice crew as one of these recurring blows was building up. He handed over the helm to get some rest, leaving clear instructions to stay in close to shore and out of the current. When he came back on deck a couple of hours later, he knew straightaway what had happened, and it didn’t take long for ­conditions to deteriorate. “The seas were four stories tall,” Duncan told me, “and the top two stories were collapsing.” They’d strayed into the ­current. For the next many hours, he said, he had to use every steering skill he’d learned sailing Hobie Cats through the beach surf in Jeffreys Bay to stay upright and sailing — except now he was doing it at sea in a 12-ton catamaran.

Duncan founded St. Francis ­Marine in 1988, and he stands as a godfather of today’s South African ­boatbuilders. When St. Francis shifted ­production from 44-footers to 50-footers in the early 2000s, Duncan sold his ­tooling for the 44s to Kevin Fouche, who used it to start Knysna Yacht Co. ­Rudi Pretorius ordered a Knysna 440 for his family and loved the build process so much that five years later he became a boatbuilder himself, starting Maverick Yachts in 2007. Meanwhile Kevin’s neighbors at ­Vision Yachts built a 45-foot cat from tooling created by Peter Wehrley at ­Matrix Yachts. In fact, the more you talk with South African ­boatbuilders — the Paarman brothers at ­Nexus Yachts, Tim van der Steene at Tag Yachts, Mark Delaney at Two Oceans Marine Manufacturing — the more you understand that the whole industry is a network of interconnected ­relationships, both within companies and between them.

Collectively, South Africa produces 30 percent of all the cruising multi­hulls in the world, second ­only to France. Yet the business models prevailing in the two countries could hardly be more different. With the exception of Robertson and Caine, which will build 175 boats this year at four separate plants near Cape Town, the South African builders produce just a handful of yachts each: four boats, eight boats, 12 boats a year. These are typically family businesses operating not as high-output factories but as artisan shops. And without exception, each of these mom-and-pop enterprises is run by very good sailors, many of whom started their company out of the desire to build a single cruising boat for themselves. Several of these builders spent years as full-time cruisers or charter skippers. Most have taken boats across oceans. Each is a veteran of the Cape of Storms.

A Boatbuilding Country

Last December I traveled to Cape Town and the Eastern Cape to meet South African boatbuilders, tour their yards, and sail some catamarans. What I found surprised me: If the ­business models hearken back to an ­earlier time, the technology from which ­many of the boats are built looks ­distinctly forward. Among this group, I saw some of the lightest, stiffest, highest-­tech sailboat structures available anywhere in the world. If you’re in the market for a new cruising cat, it’s a trip I recommend. Knysna Yachts’ ­Kevin Fouche recommends it too; he says he’ll even reimburse the travel costs of anyone who comes to visit his yard and places an order for a boat. With the rand, or ZAR, at historic lows against the dollar (at press time, U.S. $1 buys more than 15 rand), that’s an arrangement you might be able to negotiate with other builders as well.

Cape Town is the undisputed hub of South African boatbuilding. The big marine chandleries and materials suppliers are here, as are the sailmakers and riggers and boatyard crews. Other boatbuilding pockets lie farther east, past Cape Agulhas — the true southern point of Africa, and the boundary between the Atlantic and Indian oceans — and then along the Garden Route and Eastern Cape coastlines, particularly around St. Francis Bay and Knysna. Die-hard surfers are drawn to Cape St. ­Francis for the “10 million-to-1” waves at Jeffreys Bay, made legendary by the 1966 documentary The Endless Summer. Idyllic Knysna, with its vast ­lagoon and dramatic oceanfront cliffs, is a gateway to several renowned big-game reserves. The drive from Cape Town is about five hours to Knysna or ­seven and a half hours to St. Francis Bay, and the ride itself, through ­national parks and along the coast, is worth the time. Twice on the N2 ­national highway, I had to slow my rental car to let ­baboons cross, and a detour to the penguin colony at ­Simon’s Town is one I’ll never forget.

As for Cape Town, orienting yourself is easy. Take the funicular to the top of Table Mountain on a clear day, and you’ll see the whole region laid out before you. To the south stretches Cape Peninsula and some 50 miles to the Cape of Good Hope, as the Cape of Storms is known on modern charts, much of it national park that offers spectacular hiking and cycling. To the southwest lie Hout Bay and the modernist beach neighborhoods of Llandudno, Camps Bay, Clifton and Sea Point. Out west across Table Bay, 8 miles off, lies Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his sentence, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Spread out just below are the city center and the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, where Cape Town’s marine services mix with high-end shopping and entertainment. And northwest of these, out near Table Bay’s western strand and the industrial zones of Woodstock and Montague Gardens and Atlantis, lies the real interest: Here is where the boats get built.

Why Build Boats in South Africa?

South Africa’s business climate differs in some ways from the climate in North American and European countries, and in other ways from the ­climate in Latin American and Asian countries. Three forces shape any business environment: labor markets, government regulation, and procurement of materials and components.

South Africa’s blend of these ­forces is unique. When Rudi Pretorius ­examines the costs in a new Maverick 440, this is what he sees: components, 35 percent; raw materials, 19 percent; labor, 14 percent; overhead, 17 percent; and tooling, 15 percent. The big-ticket items are not labor or real estate or marketing, but components and equipment that come in from abroad. “If you were in Australia,” said Rudi, “labor would have been much, much higher.”

Phil Berman, of the Philadelphia-­based Multihull Co., conceived the broad outlines of the Balance 526 performance-cruising catamaran, then commissioned Cape Town yacht designer Anton du Toit to ­design it and Nexus Yachts of St. Francis Bay to build it. I met Phil in Cape Town for the launch of hull number one. Over the last decade or so, Phil has commissioned other new builds in Brazil and China. “The big advantage of South Africa over Brazil is procurement,” he said. “Cape Town has such a yacht-building facility that these guys can get what they need. We’ve got the Harken guys here. Southern Spars came to the boat to set up the rig. Ullman in Cape Town made the sails.” In Brazil, by contrast, “Everything had to be ordered six months out, shipped in and then trucked. So you have all this costly material, and it’s just sitting there.”

Interestingly, Rudi told me that Robertson and Caine’s high production scale inadvertently exerts an ­influence on the cost of components for all South African boatbuilders. “If I order a winch that’s on one of their boats, it’s a lot less expensive than one that isn’t,” he said.

South Africa’s most distinctive feature is its labor market: What skills are available, and at what cost? The legacy of apartheid and its aftermath fundamentally shape business here, creating both opportunities and constraints that are unlike those you’ll find elsewhere. Some of these factors take shape in government and industry programs; others are deeply rooted in ethnic culture. South Africa officially designates people according to race: Black African, Coloured (mixed race), White and so on. Through an official program called Black Economic Empowerment, based on score cards and created to redress the inequities of apartheid, the South African government formally grades each business on its degree of diversity.

Boatbuilding jobs are welcome in South Africa, as nationwide unemployment figures float around 25 percent. The going rate for an entry-­level laminator, according to one Cape Town builder I interviewed, is 40 rand ($2.70) per hour; highly skilled workers earn 100 rand ($6.70) per hour. Assuming eight-hour days and 240 ­working days in the year, that amounts to annual salaries of between $5,000 and $13,000. By contrast, a recent study by the state of Maine showed the ­average marine-trades salary in that state to be just over $40,000.

As an industry, South African boatbuilders are working to develop the necessary trade skills among potential employees. Trade groups like the South African Boat Builders ­Export Council (SABBEX) and ­Marine ­Industry Association South ­Africa (MIASA) collaborate with False Bay College on a three-year yacht and boatbuilding program that combines six-month cycles of classroom work with equal intervals in apprentice­ships. Every Cape Town yard I ­visited employed students from this program. Otherwise, each company trains its own staff.

“Virtually every one of our guys has been trained by us,” said Peter Wehrley of Matrix. “A lot of our guys had never been employed before. We generally start them at sweeper and see how they operate. Then, slowly but surely, we train them up. It’s ­actually quite rewarding to be part of the ­community.”­ Phil Berman compared his boatbuilding experiences in South Africa and China. “In China,” he said, “Lee [Xiangong] builds our boats. Lee went to a university of boatbuilding, but he isn’t a lifelong sailor. Lee is going to do exactly what I tell him to do.” In ­China, he said, communication took longer, and so it took longer to get projects done the way they wanted. And in South Africa?

“Jonathan [Paarman] isn’t going to do exactly what he’s told to do,” Phil said, laughing. “If he thinks something’s stupid, he’s going to let me know about it right away — because he’s a sailor. He intuitively knows.

“In South Africa,” he continued, “you have this core of South African build guys. There’s a culture. Guys like Jonathan, they don’t come along very often. And it takes a lifetime to get that kind of skill set.”

The Technical Spectrum

Fiber. Resin. Core. No matter who’s doing the work, the story of composite boatbuilding is the story of those three ingredients.

The simplest, lowest-tech way to build a boat is to lay out dry fiberglass (E-glass) in a female mold, then roll or spray catalyzed polyester resin into it and let it cure. “Hand-layup, solid construction” is the shorthand for this method. Since the late 1940s, it’s the predominant way that boats have been built.

“Sandwich construction” adds a core of foam or wood between fiber­glass skins to attain the desired strength with less weight. Hand-laid construction has two potential downsides. For one, the fiber-to-­resin ratio may vary widely from one day to the next: Too little resin compromises strength, while too much resin adds needless weight without adding strength. Secondly, in a sandwich construction, the bond between the fiber skins and the core depends entirely on what kind of day the laminator is having.

Vacuum-bagging is a method for evenly applying pressure on a laminate and then evenly distributing resin as it cures. This process starts out like hand-layup, but laminators cover the fiberglass, core and resin with an airtight film before the ­resin and bonding material cure. Then they submit the sandwich laminate to vacuum pressure. Consider that atmospheric pressure is 14.7 pounds per square inch. Over a span of one square foot, that works out to a ton of pressure. Core materials, whether foam or wood, start as flat panels that are scored on one side, allowing them to take on the complex shapes of a sailboat hull. Vacuum-bagging ensures that resin evenly covers the core’s surface and fills the spaces, called “kerfs,” that open up when core panels are bent. This is the method employed by Knysna Yachts, Matrix Yachts, Maverick Yachts, Nexus Yachts, Robertson and Caine, and Two Oceans.

Resin infusion is initially more ­involved and arguably riskier for the builder. How does it differ from vacuum-­bagging? Resin infusion means laying up the fiber reinforcements and core, sealing the dry laminate under plastic, then drawing resin through the bagged laminate under vacuum pressure. Infusion is ­cleaner for the workers and better for the ­environment. Classified as a “closed-mold” technology, infusion significantly reduces styrene emissions during construction. Many builders in Europe and North America have ­adopted this method in order to meet government-imposed air-quality standards. For boat owners seeking high performance and low weight, infusion can offer the ideal fiber-to-resin ­ratio. Phoenix Marine, St. Francis Marine and Tag Yachts employ resin infusion in their hulls and decks. Other South African builders are beginning to ­infuse smaller parts.

Among resins, polyester has been the base line for 70 years. Vinylester is newer, more expensive and more resistant to osmosis. Epoxy’s properties are best, but it costs about four times as much as polyester and can be tricky to work with. Matrix Yachts builds its 760 model in polyester, then applies an epoxy barrier coat below the waterline. Knysna Yachts uses vinylester in the hull’s outer skin; St. Francis uses vinylester throughout the layup. Nexus, Tag and Two Oceans build their boats entirely of epoxy. To ensure that the epoxy cures fully, some builders post-cure the entire laminate after layup. “We put it in a tent and heat it up to 80 degrees Celsius,” said Mark Delaney of Two Oceans. “Then you ramp the temperature up slowly.”

“Exotic fibers” are those with better properties than E-glass. Of these, carbon offers exemplary stiffness per weight, though it’s several times more expensive than E-glass. Matrix, Tag and Two Oceans each offer all-­carbon boats. They and Nexus also build boats with E-glass and carbon reinforce­ment for high-load areas.

Such deliberate use of materials and techniques delivers lighter, stronger boats. If high performance and low weight are what you’re ­after, the boats with the ­lower displacement-­to-length ratios tend to be the ones employing the more advanced materials and techniques. The dollars-per-displacement column gives an idea of the premium placed on lighter weight.

The Artisan Experience

South Africa’s blend of boatbuilding skills, maritime culture and ­labor rates distinguishes it from every ­other boatbuilding region. At the heart of that distinction lie the differences between high-production and artisan approaches. A 45-foot cruising cat from a high-volume yard might be built in around 5,000 man-hours, on assembly lines that employ advanced organizational techniques to reduce labor hours. Each boat ­designed for this high-volume business model must appeal to a broad demographic of sailors, which might include charterers.

By contrast, one South African builder told me his company ­invested 20,000 man-hours in a 40-­footer; ­another estimated between 25,000 and 30,000 man-hours for a performance-­oriented 50-footer.

Neither business model is ­clearly better or worse than the other. ­Rather, it’s a fundamental qualitative choice. There are advantages to owning a boat from a well-­capitalized company whose practices over dozens or hundreds of units have been standardized. More labor hours ­aren’t obviously an advantage until you go aboard the boat and assess for yourself how well those hours were spent. From one artisan-style yard to the next, the answer will not be the same. Building on a small scale means that the personality and the choices of the builder will be more indelibly stamped into the boat, for better or worse. But what’s indisputably a good thing across the spectrum of builders is that there’s such a range of choice. When you look at them all, you may just find the boat — and the builder — that you want to spend a good long stretch of your life with.

Tim Murphy is a CW editor at large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.

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The Cruising World Boat of the Year contest tries to identify the best new offerings in a range of classes based on quality, value and performance. As the contenders are short-­listed, the judges’ focus ­naturally narrows down to specific differentiating features. Thus it’s only when the contest is over, and the stacks of files and photos are collated, that we can get an overview of the state of the industry; identify new trends in design, construction techniques and materials; and explore the many small but innovative new features that we believe will survive the test of time.

The most obvious trend this year is that very few production boats are currently made in America. We tested entries manufactured in France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, South Africa, China and Croatia, but ­only the Marlow-Hunter had the screaming eagle on its builder’s certificate. This may be the result of the industry clearly consolidating into fewer,­ ­larger and more powerful ­players. Jeanneau and Beneteau, ­although in marketing terms independent of each other, are owned by the same ­umbrella group that also owns Lagoon multihulls. Even the English icon Moody has migrated east to Germany and the Hanse building complex, which also handles the Dehler line.

Design efficiency in the terrestrial environment of 90-­degree angles, relatively ­unlimited space and stable platforms is fairly straightforward. But in the watery world of compound curves, compressed spaces and constant motion, balancing fashion, function and flow requires some nautical alchemy. Manufacturers seem to want to cover as ­many niches size-wise as possible, often relying on the expedient of upsizing or downsizing extant models. This year, the ­vessels that were simply upsized left the judges feeling as if the newfound space was wasted, and those downsized felt confused, with multiple sole levels, cramped sitting and dressing ­spaces, and an overall claustrophobic feel. The take-home message is that each design, while still incorporating signature features of the brand, should start as a blank piece of paper to achieve a holistic outcome.

Ideas from the Performance Cruiser Class

On the whole, cockpit efficiency and deck flow were markedly improved this year due to the crossover classes — that is, the cruiser/racers. In the past, the typical entry in this category was a full-on racing machine with only token concessions to liveaboard life or outdoor ­leisure. But manufacturers such as Dehler, Italia, Salona and Grand Soleil arrived at last fall’s Annapolis boat show with vessels that lost little on either side of the slash. These boats are exciting to sail, elegant to live in, and practical to cruise extensively.

We found this the hardest class to judge, because to declare one a winner implied that the others were losers, which they were not! Success in this category was built around twin helms in open-ended cockpits with full-length cockpit sole travelers (some recessed for safety), narrow sheeting angles, lightweight construction and ample sail area-to-displacement ratios (the average in this class being 26.25, as opposed to the midsize cruiser class average of 17.12).

Low cockpit coamings leading to wide, flat and clean side decks made the ­general flow forward wonderful. I could literally do unobstructed laps around the boats. The Italia 13.98 (the winner of the Performance Cruiser division) and Grand Soleil 43 cleared the cockpit for racing without sacrificing outdoor entertainment at anchor by cleverly recessing their tables into the cockpit sole.

All the crossover boats and most of the cruisers sported a plumb stem to increase their waterlines and therefore theoretical hull speed. That combined with very fine bow entries resulted in a tight working space on the foredeck and vulnerable gantry-style rollers to extend the ground tackle beyond the stem. In an attempt to decrease windage and create a clean and lean look, several of the performance cruisers went with recessed headsail furlers. In some cases, that created conflicts with access to the rode locker, subdeck line routing and maintenance.

Perhaps because of the high number of performance cruisers among this year’s ­entries, there was a noticeable decline in the number of in-mast mainsail furling systems. Putting the debate of convenience versus reliability aside, this translated into significantly better performance, since full battens and positive roach add substantial horsepower to any mainsail.

Several years ago the hard chine appeared in many of the major models, and now it has become a signature feature. While the chines may enhance hull stiffness and add a modicum of interior beam at the aft berth level, they are too shallow in angle and too highly placed on the hull to actually add any form stability. But my, they do look racy.

Cockpit Considerations

The traditional aft cockpit of years past might now be better described as a semi­center cockpit, as there was typically a substantial span of deck between the cockpit’s aft coaming and the taffrail. On the other hand, the majority of this year’s entrants, regardless of class, ­sported open transoms, ­allowing designers to push the functions of sheeting and steering to the ­extreme aft end of the boat. While this may sacrifice lazarette stowage, it also ­creates ­additional space to separate the work­stations from the cockpit seating and allows for longer trunk ­cabins, thus increasing interior volume. Some models, such as the Italia 13.98, employ what I call a “trick transom” — a boarding platform that flips up and doubles as a hard transom — while ­others, like the Jeanneau 54, simply stretch lifelines athwartships aft. These open transoms ­offer ease of access aft, but the versions with ­only lifelines aft do not leave much structure ­between you and the deep blue sea.

The concept of separating work and lounging areas is taken a step further on the Azuree 46. Instead of traditionally ­mounting the sheet winches on the cockpit coamings running fore and aft, the Azuree runs athwartship binnacles ­forward of the twin helms, where you’ll find the sheet ­winches and electric controls. This setup is ergonomically superior to hunching over a wide cockpit seat to ­access the ­winches, and I ­believe it will become ­increasingly popular.

Cockpit tables have become substantial and sophisticated, incorporating built-in navigational screens, lighting, refrigeration, stowage, and hand- and footholds.

The once-popular large-diameter single wheel evolved not just to enhance steering sensitivity, but also to ­allow the helmsperson to steer from either side of the boat. The disadvantage was that the wheel too often blocked access forward to the sheet ­winches. The now nearly ubiquitous twin helms that have replaced the single wheel provide visibility from either port or starboard, and create perfect flow forward from the transom to the companionway. Necessity is the mother of invention. At 31 feet, the Marlow-Hunter has no room for the aforementioned twin helms, so ­instead a standard racing wheel on a canting pedestal can be swung from port to amidships to starboard. The wheel is ­also collapsible so one can take full advantage of the spacious cockpit when at anchor.

Apparently, today all lines lead to the cockpit as all roads once led to Rome. While this may eliminate the need to go forward, it also can result in a Gordian knot of tangled sheets, reefing lines, halyards and outhauls. Several entrants designed sheet wells in the cockpit sole or coamings. Those with drop-down lids then double as steps or walking areas. However, several entrants forgot to add a notch in the lid for the lines to lie in and allow the lid to close. With lines leading aft, reducing the need to work at the mast, mast pulpits are waning in popularity.

Going Forward

Grand Soleil has ­experimented with mounting a low-profile anchor windlass in a vertical position rather than the more typical horizontal installation. This eliminates the need for a horizontal mounting shelf, which inevitably restricts ­access to the rode locker.

Perhaps partly due to the popularity of cutter rigs and self-tacking headsails, throughout the 2016 fleet there remains a dearth of sufficient deck span to secure a RIB or hard dinghy. This leaves sailors with roll-up inflatables or davits, which may be suitable for daysailing and perhaps coastal cruising, but remain questionable for ocean passages. With the growing popularity of the solent rig, which moves the inner stay forward, toward the headstay, proper deck stowage will likely reappear.

With the exception of the traditionally designed Passport 545, drive shafts, packing glands, cutlass bearings and fussy engine alignments have been replaced by saildrives on the 2016 entrants. Along those lines, a small but clever innovation that I noticed is a recessed diesel deck fill. The cap sits in a small well that captures and funnels any minor spills. This makes for easier mop-ups and cleaner oceans.

But for a few exceptions, the industry seems to have agreed that outward-opening ports are accidents waiting to happen, as when a wildly flagging sheet inevitably wraps one up and carries it away. With translucent, modern materials of bulletproof strength, in-hull deadlights are appearing across the range, from the Marlow-Hunter 31 to the Beneteau 60.

Overall, and happily, it ­appears that boatbuilders are watching and learning from one another, and, dare I suggest it, even taking note of the mountain of data collected by the BOTY judges over the history of the event. This was a banner year for affordable midsize boats, fast and fun cruiser/racers, and elegant yet capable ocean voyagers.

Veteran voyager Alvah Simon is a Cruising World Boat of the Year judge and frequent contributor.

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In the end, even Mother Nature decided to pay a little respect to the Maine Boatbuilders Show, which ushered in the first day of Spring on what will perhaps be the final day of the nearly three-decades-old expo — at least as we’ve come to know it. A much talked about nor’easter held off its march up the East Coast until late Sunday night, giving vendors and attendees plenty of time to get on their way before the driving turned nasty.

Instead of snow, sleet and misery, attendees who made the trek — some might call it an annual pilgrimage — to Portland over the weekend were greeted with just about perfect weather and a lively show, thanks to more than 150 exhibitors who showcased their wares in the familiar old brick buildings that until recently were home to Portland Yacht Services, which sponsors both the boat show and, until this year, the Portland Flower Show.

Despite an uncertain future, most of the show goers I encountered were quite pleased by the present display of sail and powerboats from an array of yards across the state and region. There were a number of new gear and equipment vendors alongside the many builders and boatyards that have been mainstays over the years. My personal favorite (besides the mandatory bowl of chili and bottle of Shipyard Ale)? It was probably the lovely Herreshoff Fish Class sloop Sculpin, from Artisan Boatworks. Think exquisite varnished artwork that floats.

Three years ago, Portland Yacht Services owner Phin Sprague announced he was selling the property, a former locomotive factory, to developers and would move his service and marina business to a new location on the Portland waterfront. Those plans called for a new building to house the popular springtime shows on a portion of a 23-acre brownfield site, which Sprague cleaned up. A proverbial wrench, though, was tossed into the works when the Maine Department of Transportation took 18 of those acres by eminent domain for a container port. Sprague and the state have been at odds since over claims that he didn’t receive a fair price for the land. (Read that full story here.)

Sprague said Saturday that it’s certain this would be the last year for the show at the Fore Street location, as the new owner is eager to get on with his waterfront development project. He added that he’s not aware of another building big enough to house the exhibits elsewhere in Portland, and because of the ongoing dispute with the state, he’s lacked the funds to build a replacement.

The crowd in Maine, though, is a resourceful bunch, with lots to celebrate when it comes to building and outfitting lovely and purposeful vessels. If I were the betting sort, I’d wager they’d conclude that one way or another, the show must go on.

More Photos:

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