OVNI vs Garcia vs Boreal

Sybarite said:
I wouldn't call Ovni's flimsy; enough of them are RTW boats. Perhaps not as well finished? However I am no expert on the subject.

Or, ask Jimmy Cornell; I believe his son is on here from time to time.
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No, I would not call them flimsy... just that they LOOK flimsier than a Boreal. After all Jimmy Cornell has ordered a Garcia, not another Ovni.

Still- I would like to hear from the likes of JC or anyone else: does the lifting rudder arrangement cause any problems.

Reading comments like those of Evans on his blog - about the advantage of simplicity - makes me wonder about the Ovni rudders... but you don't hear complaints on here, so perhaps they are just fine.
 
Sybarite said:
Wow what a coincidence! I had ear-marked your blog for what must be well over a year ago. Your boat reflects much of what I admire in a cruising yacht. Unfortunately the means aren't there - although I haven't yet checked my lottery ticket...!

I'm sorry to hear that you have to part with her and I hope it goes the way you would like it in the circumstances. Good luck.
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+1

except that I know that my lottery numbers did not come up... because I did not play them :-). I'm saving up instead....
 
We have a Garcia, a Passoa 47, bought as a bare hull and finished by ourselves, so we know its construction quite well. We have been cruising about 5 month/year since 2004.
I have seen many OVNI's and Garcias close up.
Garcia is heavier and better built, but OVNI's are good too. Garcias cost more.
I cannot comment on Boreal.
If you buy one, try to minimise paint. We have epoxy under the anti-foul, and non-skid on deck, avoiding all the complex places like toe rail.
Photos at www.mccubbin.ca
 
Boo2 said:
Very late to this thread I know, but why try to minimise paint ?

Boo2
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After 5-10 years the paint will start to blister off. Unpainted aluminium cannot blister
It is of course essential to have antifouling paint below the waterline and a few inches above it
On deck, it is best to paint only the places you would normally glue on Treadmaster or other covering. When it blisters, it is easy to grind clean and repaint
If the toe-rail, chain plates and other places with complex surfaces and/or interior corners are painted, cleaning them for repainting is a h!@@ish job.

It takes only a couple of days to paint inside the bilges. However it takes several years to carry all the bilge paint our in little pieces. We find it very hard to get paint to stick in the bilges, and regret having painted them.
On the other hand, we just opened a water tanks after 11 years service, and found only a tiny area of blistering paint. We used a deVoe paint intended for insides of municipal aluminium water tanks. Good stuff. We have observed that unpainted aluminium water tanks form white pustules of oxide. We were finding this in our water filter, so opened the tanks. It all comes form the aluminium dip-tube that withdraws the water. I am replacing it with plastic.
 
Filgood said:
My vote would be for the boreal. Everything aluminium and love the doghouse, double glazing, etc. downside is the very long lead time to get one build. While the allures is ready after 9 month and slightly roomier than the boreal, I'm not sure I like the grp lid on a metal tin concept....but the allures 44 can be found on the second hand market
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I agree with most of the positive comments on the Boreal. they use too much paint (refer to my post on page 3) but a new owner can control that.
We have a Garcia Passoa 47. we were very surprised this summer in the Hebridies when we left harbour on a run to windward just ahead of a Boreal 47. In the open, with winds around 18 knots and a chop, we were pointing a few degrees higher and sailing a knot faster than the Boreal for several hours. We could observe his every move on AIS, as he could ours. This is of course only a single experience, we may not always run away from him.
We usually beat OVNI's slightly. OVNIs are good boats, but I have met several who have has some issues with the swing rudder. On the other hand, I envy its greater depth than ours.
 
Reinke of course. Those being semi-custom, beware of bad examples. Here's the most famous good example, the Wilts' Freydis III, well known amongst German sailors, but virtually unknown everywhere else due to there being almost no translated publications: https://www.google.com/translate?u=http://www.freydis.de/wordpress/?page_id=969

The Wilts' are exploring "extreme" sailors in the vein of Skip Novak and have taken their Reinkes virtually anywhere, including wintering in Antarctica (with some trouble) on their previous steel-hull (also Reinke), which was later lost in Fukushima prefecture of all places (during that tsunami). They've scraped together their savings and built a new boat, this time in aluminium. Also a Reinke design, with a custom swing keel in an exterior box based on their previous experiences. Much of their experience has been used in refining the Reinke designs over the decades.

Really wish their books were available in English, they're not only entertaning to read, but also full of great advice (and merciless reviews of the kit they've used at the end of each trip).
 
I met someone who was considering an OVNI, he was shown pics of one which had gone on a beach in a serious gale and was rolled up it; of course the rig went, but she stayed intact, if a bit dented !

Lovely sailor's boats, but - and I'm standing by for incoming flak - I think with an alloy boat one has to accept it has a finite lifespan, and disimilar metals are a serious problem; alright they may not have been so well built with the knowledge we have now, but try to find a 1980's Sarum 28 British alloy boat - at the time marketed as having a new spiffing alloy but that didn't work on the older ones I've seen.

Remember the French are a lot less sentimental about boats, sail harder and dare I say better than most Brits but probably more willing to say goodbye to corroded jobs...
 
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nmccubbin said:
I agree with most of the positive comments on the Boreal. they use too much paint (refer to my post on page 3) but a new owner can control that.
We have a Garcia Passoa 47. we were very surprised this summer in the Hebridies when we left harbour on a run to windward just ahead of a Boreal 47. In the open, with winds around 18 knots and a chop, we were pointing a few degrees higher and sailing a knot faster than the Boreal for several hours.
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Hello, do you recall the boat's name?

I have friends on a 47 who were on the west coast of Scotland this year and would be interested to know if it was the same boat.
 
Not forget Koopmans also. It is true that you can't find a 2nd hand Boreal and Ovnis are expensive due to demand. I went to see a 45 ft lift keel Koopmans in Holland. It was centre cockpit with a dog house. Absolute beast.

Ok I didn't buy it but I was close and you got a much larger boat for the money that you'd have got with Ovni.
 
nmccubbin said:
After 5-10 years the paint will start to blister off. Unpainted aluminium cannot blister
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As a matter of interest, does this apply to haveing the boat epoxy coated at the factory too ?

Also, I had a look at the layout of these boats (Ovni, Garcia and Boreal) and was a bit surprised to find there was no stern garage for the tender. Seems a bit of an omission for an expedition oriented cruising boat ? I assume they will add such a facility if you ask them when ordering ? </daydream>

Boo2
 
Seajet said:
Lovely sailor's boats, but - and I'm standing by for incoming flak - I think with an alloy boat one has to accept it has a finite lifespan, and disimilar metals are a serious problem; alright they may not have been so well built with the knowledge we have now, but try to find a 1980's Sarum 28 British alloy boat - at the time marketed as having a new spiffing alloy but that didn't work on the older ones I've seen.
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Why do you say alloy boats have a finite lifespan cf other boats eg steel and/or grp ? I understood the appropriate marine alloys to be impervious to seawater modulo galvanic and electrolytic corrosion ? I did see an eBay ad (but didn't visit the boat itself) for one of the 1980's alloy boats (not sure whether it was a Sarum) and it didn't look any worse than its age would suggest.

Boo2
 
I think Boreal and Allures are the stand-out contenders in aluminium centre-board long-term live-aboard yachts at the moment. Boreal has the advantage as a pure high latitude expedition yacht (single rudder, interior watch dog-house, protected cockpit, single wheel, optimised for comfort in extreme conditions, and decent upwind performance). Allures is more orientated to low latitude tropical/tradewind sailing (massive wide stern, twin wheels, twin vulnerable rudders, huge cockpit to fall out of) and performance sailing (the new 45.9 has an option of traditional centre-board or lifting keel/carbon mast).

The latest Garcias are too fat/ugly, high freeboard and expensive to compete against Boreal. The latest Alubat Evolutions are a bit of a mystery as they seem to have designed an aluminium mediterranean marina-hopper in aluminium, which seems a bit pointless to me.

Boreals really stand out at the moment - designed by two friends who have really done high latitude long term cruising.
 
TiggerToo said:
yes, it is impossible to give a price for a 2nd hand Boreal
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There has been one second hand 44 sold. Sadly, I learnt about it too late!

I know of one that is on the hard in the US of A, but not for sale. I asked the owner before they left Falmouth for the trip back to the US of A last December.
 
Ric said:
I think Boreal and Allures are the stand-out contenders in aluminium centre-board long-term live-aboard yachts at the moment. Boreal has the advantage as a pure high latitude expedition yacht (single rudder, interior watch dog-house, protected cockpit, single wheel, optimised for comfort in extreme conditions, and decent upwind performance). Allures is more orientated to low latitude tropical/tradewind sailing (massive wide stern, twin wheels, twin vulnerable rudders, huge cockpit to fall out of) and performance sailing (the new 45.9 has an option of traditional centre-board or lifting keel/carbon mast).

The latest Garcias are too fat/ugly, high freeboard and expensive to compete against Boreal. The latest Alubat Evolutions are a bit of a mystery as they seem to have designed an aluminium mediterranean marina-hopper in aluminium, which seems a bit pointless to me.

Boreals really stand out at the moment - designed by two friends who have really done high latitude long term cruising.
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In spite of this thread being a couple of years old, I thought I should point out that Garcia's Exploration 45 and 52 were designed as high latitude, go anywhere cruisers, the former was specifically designed with input from Jimmy Cornell to go through the North-West Passage, which led to the latter.

Also worth pointing out that the Garcia's twin rudders have a sacrificial top section (so should the rudder post get bent they'll still be usable), a short protective skeg forward of them and a watertight bulkhead above them, and of course, both steering mechanisms can be completely separated if necessary. The Garcia also has near 360° vision from the saloon, and the nav station forward. So while Garcia and Allures come out of the same Cherbourg factory, they are designed with two different cruising grounds in mind.
 
snooks said:
In spite of this thread being a couple of years old, I thought I should point out that Garcia's Exploration 45 and 52 were designed as high latitude, go anywhere cruisers, the former was specifically designed with input from Jimmy Cornell to go through the North-West Passage, which led to the latter.

Also worth pointing out that the Garcia's twin rudders have a sacrificial top section (so should the rudder post get bent they'll still be usable), a short protective skeg forward of them and a watertight bulkhead above them, and of course, both steering mechanisms can be completely separated if necessary. The Garcia also has near 360° vision from the saloon, and the nav station forward. So while Garcia and Allures come out of the same Cherbourg factory, they are designed with two different cruising grounds in mind.
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Interesting, but nevertheless I like the Boreal philosophy better. One of the Boreal founders sailed extensively a steel Chatam (Philip Harlé design - well reputed as a high latitude boat) in Patagonia, but was constantly bedevilled by kelp fouling the leeward rudder. What finally convinced him to have a single rudder was when one fouled on a rock and pierced the hull, almost sinking the boat. The Boreal can get away with a single, very well protected rudder because it relatively narrow aft. The Garcia is very beamy aft, so they presumably had to go down the complicated solution you describe to avoid a similar fate.

But the first thing that struck me when visiting the Garcia 45 at SIBS a couple of years ago is its MASSIVE freeboard and overall bulkiness. I just can't imagine it working upwind very well. The Boreal, by contrast, has a much sleeker and lower profile, a narrower stern, tighter sheeting angle on the self-tacking staysail, a real effort to keep the ballast low and centred. I have a feeling it would work upwind much better, and would also be pretty quick and stable off the wind due to the daggerboards.

I'm also a big fan of the doghouse on the Boreal - its a half-way station place where you can keep watch at the nav station in foul weather in full oilies, ready to go out on deck when needed. By contrast on the Garcia the nav station is at the front of saloon, not ideal if you are in full soaking oilies and other crew are resting, eating or cooking.

I haven't yet plugged the stats into my spreadsheet, but I suspect that the Boreal would outscore the Garcia on most performance, safety and comfort indices, and would also be the more comfortable, safe and fast boat in real conditions too.

BTW - if you are still looking for interesting YM boat tests a Boreal v Garcia test somewhere cold and remote would be far more interesting than yet another AWB in the Solent..
 
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