Archambault 40

 

The nor-wester wins the battle with the sea breeze and Cabernet Sauvignon leaves harbour under spinnaker. Out at sea, up goes the No.1 headsail. Sailing this boat is really easy; in a breeze of 15-18 knots, she is a bit overpowered in the gusts when going upwind, but the light steering keeps her well under control. We get 7.2 knots of boat speed at around 28 degrees to the wind, but the breeze is twitchy and the angle is hard to measure.

We bear away, up goes the kite and speed jumps instantly to 10 knots on a deep reach. Up a few degrees to a beam reach and we get 10.7 knots of boat speed in 12 knots Apparent of wind. A bit of a ripple comes off the shore and Cabernet scoots up to 12 knots. Easy. Steve reports that at Hammo they saw 17 knots running in 25 knots of breeze.

The boat is astonishingly easy to control. The steering does not load up at any time; to a degree, steering is an intellectual exercise, not a tactile one. By that I mean that when Glenn calls "pressure coming" and I wait for the helm to tell me that the boat feels the extra breeze, nothing happens. She simply accelerates in a straight line, with no need to wind off helm. It may be a different story in a sea and with tougher gusts; we had smooth seas, but there is never an acute angle of heel, or sudden lurch that upsets the crew. It's a terrible cliche, but this hull really, really is like a big dinghy.

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Upwind back to harbour, with the No.3 headsail instead of the No.1, we see 7.3 knots at around 26 degrees.

This boat is easy to like because it is easy to sail and it is fast. The lowish compromise factor in design has kept the weight down, which adds to the responsiveness, which adds to the fun. The Archambault is not high-tech, so it should not be expensive to maintain and repair.

Steve, Glenn and their crew can vouch for the fun. The crew brought most of the new sails to Hammo on the plane. "We had a day to put them up and make sure they were triangular," says Steve.

Next day, the first race at Hammo was Cabernet's first race ever. She finished 25th; despondent, Stephen hired a diver to have a look underwater.

The diver found nothing, but Glenn still reckons they had picked up a line from a fish trap. Next day they were third, then followed a second, third again, and they wrapped up the week with two wins, to place second overall. "We came home with a wet sail", says Steve.

The only problem with the boat so far is that the anchor hatch leaked when running at 17 knots in the short Whitsunday seas.

Cabernet's owner is very happy with his boat. The trouble is, with a great debut regatta like this, when emotions ran from despair to euphoria, what does a new boat do for an encore?

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