Yvan Bougnon's circumnavigation in a beach cat project

^^^

The translate-bots aren't good with many nautical terms Corley. Here's a French to English online dictionary which is often useful.

Français-Anglais Lexique de Navigation Maritime

For French expressions and slang, I've often found that wordreference.com is good.

Occasionally when something is very mysterious then it works to do an image search on it, and see who else has used the term/expression.

...

Gros grain cette nuit: Big squall tonight...

j’ai chaviré au début du grain: I capsized at the start of the squall...

la télécommande du pilote qui a pris feu: the autopilot remote which caught fire...

glacières de confort: cooler boxes/bags.

Et je n’ai plus de pilote à bâbord: And I don't anymore have an autopilot drive unit on the port side.

...

Someone has to stop this maniac, before he gets to the Pacific.



With his luck, if he gets to the Marquesas he'll land on a beach which still is inhabited by cannibals.

 

Thanks for that link Blackburn it clarifies a lot of terms that I've not been able to find a good translation for, cheers.

 

Report in English

In case it helps other English-speaking readers, I try to post updates of Yvan's great adventure on my Small Trimaran site ... despite being a catamaran. The story is too good to miss after all ;-)
If interested: try this
www.smalltridesign.com
and under 'LATEST' at left, you'll find the updates on Yvan's progress .. plus lots of other goodies applicable to small multihulls.

regards
mike

 

Mike, I see from your site that you were the owner of 'Magic Hempel".

When did you buy it? It happens that I bought the rig and sails from that boat from Jens (after a dismasting in the Skagerrak) back in about '85 or so.

 

Magic Hempel

Bought her in 1990 and owned her for 16 years. A truly wonderful boat and the inspiration behind my new W22. M-H was fitted with new amas around 2008 and was seen in 2013 on Lake Memphremagog in Quebec, Canada, so she's still going.

mike

 

Tonight I read a little story about Tom Linton's race with her, good story!

In our case we were very happy with the mast - which was quite identical in its spreader arrangement to what still features on Dragonfly's - and we soon got new sails from Shore and Smyth.

... So you had to learn the French to keep your Quebec clientele happy? That shows dedication above and beyond!

I read your remarks about how we should be glad that Yvan Bourgnon is doing new things... But it seems to me that Bourgnon initially intended this to be a 2-man expedition, and that he's now doing it alone due to lack of alternatives and/or something akin to obsession. I wonder to what extent the boat is too heavy with two onboard, and pretty damn dangerous when soloed.

 

Just as an interesting aside on Magic Hempel one of the old floats is seeing duty as Kurt Hughes little outboard powered outrigger. Great boats just keep going on and on .

 

^^^

I see the steering wheel, but what kind of outboard is it?

...

Corley, with your measureless, encyclopedic, knowledge of this forum: where do we post anything relating to the upcoming A-cat worlds?

...

And do you suppose maybe Bourgnon should find something a tad less grueling to do. I half imagine that when his earlier crew jumped ship, there was an argument about whether or not the project was safe enough, and now Bourgnon feels driven to follow through come hell or high water.

 

And do you suppose maybe Bourgnon should find something a tad less grueling to do. I half imagine that when his earlier crew jumped ship, there was an argument about whether or not the project was safe enough, and now Bourgnon feels driven to follow through come hell or high water.

Yes I think that probably is the push behind his determination to see this through. If so nothing short of total damage to the boat will stop him.

 

Re boat to crew weight

Re: "I wonder to what extent the boat is too heavy with two onboard, and pretty damn dangerous when soloed"
.
Well, for sure, this nigh 'impossible dream' of Yvan's would be considerably more feasible with 2 people aboard for many reasons - like more stability and getting some rest! ... but from a design viewpoint, making this boat lighter (even if possible) would only serve to make his personal weight even more critical (re his position aboard) than it is already. For such a long voyage, the higher the boat weight relative to the mobile crew weight, the more one can depend on the boat itself and less on acrobatics of the lone crew. For short races, you want a high proportion of the total weight to be mobile, but certainly not, for any sort of 'long cruise'.
But once capsized, the situation reverses and now you need a high crew weight relative to boat weight. All Yvan can do is dump or relocate waterballast and then rig up some impressive means to allow his sole weight to apply leverage.
So what I would personally like to see, is something I've suggested via my website .. and that is, to take advantage of the location of the outboard bench and securely strap on an inflatable bag to its underside, so that buoyancy could be created there to help get the mast tip above the water surface and aid Yvan in the righting of his heavy boat. I think it's worth a test anyway. Righting this boat alone must take herculean strength and endurance and I suspect this will be needed a few more times before this trip is terminated.

 

Apparently the power outrigger uses a 4hp 4 stroke engine which gives 13 knots. I'd just post info about the A cat worlds in this forum it's multihull related

http://multihullblog.com/2011/10/power-proa-redux/#comments

One positive aspect is the much better progress Yvan makes every day when sailing solo. His tracker indicated that some days he managed nearly 200nm not bad for a little beach cat.

 

other subjects

Interesting little boat Corley, but perhaps you could direct this to a more appropriate thread (with a cross reference), and leave this one for Yvan as intended. I feel his effort deserves that and hope you agree.
cheers

 

A little bit of OT never hurt anyone as long as it doesn't go for pages.

Yvan's latest update:

"I spent the day to tinker and store. I have dream conditions for navigating, finally! as I waited for my departure! Even if capsized Tuesday evening has been very demanding, now all is well, full sun, I already made half the course despite the capsize, I'm ahead of my time, cool! Tomorrow, we'll see if the portion of the tip of the Colombia is dangerous. "

 

The impossible dream, perhaps, but do you think it might be a mid-life crisis, the mother of all mid-life-crises in the multihull category?

Yvan's brother Laurent has been quoted (here) saying 'the cat might be a little too big'. I think he's got a point in regard to the size of the rig and the weight of the boat, and maybe also how those hiking benches affect the balance and righting characteristics (in the videos it looks like Yvan has too much junk stashed on the benches), things which were mostly contingent on there being 2 onboard, for proper handling.

In that link above there are several pictures of Bourgnon's lady companion. Suppose it's the case that Yvan's project makes her justifiably anxious, as I imagine she is; then I hope Yvan will know when enough is enough.

 

Corley.
Just another little bit of OT.
In that blog of yours is an Add for "Bloomfield Innovations".
What is the latest on that. Bloomfield seems to have disappeared beyond the event horizon. :?: