Boat Plans Bolger
The happy band of sailing men seen in the picture here are volunteers from the "Cale 2 lIle" association based in the French port of Nantes. The association aims to save some of Frances nautical heritage by restoring and maintaining old boats.
The boat theyre sitting on is one they all helped build - the St Michel II - a replica of Jules Vernes second yacht in which he enjoyed escaping from land to cruise and write his novels in peace. (The reason theyre all sitting on the rail, by the way, is that theyre helping the boats designer, Francois Vivier, to measure the boats 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 Frances 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 yachts 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 worlds most famous author of tales of travel and adventure. This new boat required a crew of 10 men, and Vernes 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. Im 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 lIle
Images and story sources: La Cale 2 lIle and Francois Vivier
Additional images: Ouest-France, Mer et Marine.com
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Philipe Harlés Muscadet is a French legend. In the early 1960s the Muscadet helped “democratise” the sport of sailing, making ownership of a real coastal cruiser affordable for the ordinary working man. There were, of course, other designs, many from the drawing board of J-J Herbulot, that were as affordable and as capable, but it is the Muscadet, with its instantly recognizable profile, its startlingly good offshore performance, its sheer numbers and its longevity that must take the honours as the real French “peoples boat”.
To start at the beginning, Philippe Harlé was working at the Glénans Sailing School where he was in charge of boat maintenance. A new motor supply shuttle was needed for the cash-strapped, island-based school, so Harlé designed it and oversaw its construction himself. Naturally he was then the obvious choice to manage the construction of the schools new offshore training yacht, Glénan, designed by the great John Illingworth.
In spite of this encouragement, Philippe was still working at the Glenans when the prototype of his next design, the Muscadet, was launched at the Aubin yard in Nantes during February 1963. Built in plywood with a single hard edged chine, its reverse sheer and high slabby topsides unrelieved by ports or other features, she must have looked unusual to say the least. Claude Harlé, Philippes wife, thought it ugly, and taking a tin of anchovies from her larder as a template, she traced three oblong porthole openings on the Muscadet plans. With these windows and a broad contrast stripe painted under the sheerline, the Muscadets looks were marginally improved, and the boat sailed, with little further preparation, across the Bay of Biscay from Nantes in heavy weather, to take part in a One-Of-A-Kind Rally organised by a yachting magazine at La Rochelle.
The crews of the competing yachts may have laughed at the little "soap box” as they called the Muscadet, but they stopped laughing when she outsailed bigger and much more expensive boats and left them all with a good view of her most boxy feature – her almost square transom. That year two further Muscadets sailed to the Glénans, where they were trialled by many of the staff and trainees and excellent reviews were published in the Glénans journal. Muscadets performance both on and off the wind, especially in a choppy sea, was judged outstanding, and her fine seakeeping and sailing qualities, together with her low cost, soon led to a very full order book for the builders, Aubin, and to Philippe giving up his job and setting up shop as a Naval Architect in his Paris apartment.
At any time in the 1960s or 70s, a yachtsman visiting France would have noticed the proliferation of the Muscadet class. it was taken up by individuals and clubs all over France, and its amazing ability to make fast passages in rough water, often with 4, or even more, on board (the French love to sail in company) impressed the crews of larger, more traditional British cruising yachts who would find Muscadets turning up in the Channel Isles, the Scillies, the English south coast ports, and even the south-west of Ireland.
Although the Muscadet continued to prove its ability in offshore races throughout the 1980s (there was at least one Muscadet in every Mini-Transat up until 1991), the new generation of Mini 6.50 offshore racers, including designs by Harlé, eventually made it uncompetitive. However, the class remains, to this day, highly popular in French waters as a family cruiser and one-design regatta racer.
", by Claude Harlé and Dominique Lebrun.
