It took us a long time to find the just right Goldilocks designer for our new boat Möbius, but we knew we’d found him almost instantly when we first started talking with Dennis Harjamaa at Artnautica Yacht Design. One of the many things which sets Dennis apart from most other naval architects and designers, and made him the perfect fit for us, is that he not only designed the first LRC58 to be his own boat, he also built it almost entirely single handed and has lived aboard full time with his wonderful partner Raquel ever since launching “Koti” (Finnish for home) in beautiful Auckland New Zealand.
Dennis’ LRC58 design caught more than our attention and three other LRC58’s have now been built in different yards around the world and Christine and I have been fortunate enough to spend time on two of these in our travels the past two years.
The most recent LRC58-3 launched last July at Aluboot (www.aluboot.nl) in Hindeloopen, The Netherlands and her owner Rob Westermann , who was a very hands on part of the build, could not be prouder or happier. Rob has very appropriately named her mv Britt.
Rob managed to find time to photograph and blog throughout the build and you can find all that and a full description of this boat at the EU site for Artnautica.
Congratulations Rob! And Dennis!
Related to this, and another truly phenomenal resource is the blog of mv Dirona, a 2010 Nordhaven 52 profusely populated with excellent articles by a couple who are fellow live aboard passage making explorers, James and Jennifer Hamilton. I mention James and Jennifer not only to point you to their treasure trove of a blog but also because they have been cruising around the UK and northern Europe the past few months and on their way to a berth in Harlingen in The Netherlands, they passed Britt which caught their interest immediately. Rob invited them aboard for a full tour which James in typical fashion photographed and wrote about in this thorough posting describing his impressions and what he found aboard Britt. I think you will find this a great use of your time to read, just be forewarned that once you start exploring James & Jennifer’s site you won’t likely get much else done for the rest of the day.
One of their other postings I think you might find particularly worthwhile while we are on this theme of these long and skinny all aluminum ocean crossing passage makers, is the similar overview James posted after he and Jennifer spent time with Steve and Linda Dashew aboard their truly awemazing FPB 781 Cochise. Most of you would probably know all about these ground breaking boats from the SetSail blog which Steve has been lavishly posting to for more than a decade with the intricate details of their entire journey from a life of sailing to designing and building the most famous of these kinds of boats, the FPB series.
You may have read Christine’s March post here “Meeting Steve” about her serendipitous meeting with Steve and Cochise back in September 2016 when we were finishing our big renovation of our 52’ steel sailboat sv Learnativity in Vuda Point Marina in Fiji. Steve and Linda had Cochise out on what they thought was going to be a round trip passage from where they built all their FPB’s at Circa in Whangarei New Zealand up to Fiji for an extended set of sea trials and anchored just outside Vuda Pt. Marina. So Christine and Barney paddled out to say Hi and get a closer look at Cochise and she tells that whole story in her post.
While certainly still relatively small in numbers compared to trawler style passage makers such as Fleming’s, Nordhavn’s, Selene’s and the like, this new “family” of long lean efficient all aluminium passage makers is certainly growing both in numbers and in variation on this theme. A “family name” has not yet evolved for these type of boats but I suspect it will over time.
In the interim there are more and more people who, like Christine and myself, have been inspired and enlightened by this nameless and growing family of boats now out exploring the world’s oceans and even more so by their energetic and innovative designers, builders and owners. We’ve been long time and long range live aboard world passage makers and thought we would continue to wander, ponder and wonder at this awemazing world of ours one nautical smile at a time under sail indefinitely. However, the newfound challenges and adventures of voyaging under power aboard one of these new family of boats with their shared set of characteristics and this relatively new ability for a couple to easily cross oceans safely, comfortably and efficiently under power, has inspired and seduced us into doing what we’ve always done, which is to go wherever is calling our hearts and minds the loudest.
Möbius is how we have decided to answer these calls and set sail on this whole new journey. We started this journey about three years ago and as you can tell, it has completely captivated and delighted us already. Thanks to finding Dennis, Baris and Dincer at Artnautica and Naval Yachts to form “Team Möbius” with us and bravely take on this collaborative work of art and engineering, we can’t wait to launch Möbius next year and be back at sea again to join these other family members in secluded anchorages around the world.
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