SOON TO BE IN ST. KILDA? – IT COULD HAPPEN!
I always intended the Vertue LUANA to be my final boat. And so it has turned out, although I never imagined I would end up selling the boat before I had even had a chance to sail it. The best laid plans…
My boating life has been very varied. I was decidedly fickle in my early years (1960-1974), sometimes being ready to move on from the latest purchase in a matter of weeks as my mood (and/or bank balance) changed. Some boats stayed with me for much longer – the ones that arrived as dilapidated wooden outcasts and needed a considerable investment of time before they could head off again as gleaming swans, for example. Whipped on by my ambition, I wanted always to sail further, on a bigger boat, in greater comfort and, most importantly, with a roof: solid shelter from the elements improved the odds of tempting some female company aboard quite substantially. Most of all, I was itching for adventure and hungry for more of what I needed to buy my dreams, the swan of swans. That particular swan, as fate would have it, I eventually (and some might say somewhat rashly) swapped for Windpilot. Windpilot at that point added up to little more than an idea and a stable full of oily WW2 machinery that could be used to manufacture marketable goods out of stainless-steel tube, but to me it was simply irresistible. I wanted to make it mine, preferably immediately. A couple of hours test-sailing the Lilofee off Kiel, a handshake and it was done: goodbye boat, hello keys to a stable – a stable in a small town in the woods not very far from what was then the East German border. If nowhere had a middle, it must have been close.
I find myself reading this story again and again, for no other reason than that I still can’t quite grasp everything that happened. In truth I am never likely to at this point in my life, but seeing it all in print really brings home to me what madness – as my then-wife succinctly put it – it must have seemed like at the time. I suspect she never changed her view on the subject and it probably played a big part in the breakdown of our relationship two years later. She never saw the method in the madness! Time was always tight back then too and the pressure was unrelenting. Thinking about it, not much has changed on that score: my impatience never tires of whipping me on.
Although I never seemed to be able to content myself with the same boat for long, I knew very early on exactly what type of boat would be make me happy. The primary requirement? A very (very) long keel. My first real cruising yacht, Lümmel, had two steel beams bolted on below the deadwood, which made cornering a challenge: back the foresail and it would eventually come up through the wind, but never with any real urgency. We should of course remember that the mildewed cotton sails of the time were as heavy as sacking and quite unconducive to effective trim, especially as a simple 2:1 was usually all the help available (winches yet to have come into widespread use). Tumlare, Folkboat, Bianca 27, 6 KR A&R, Trintel IIB: I liked solid, seaworthy boats with pedigree. A robust main rudder hung in the lee of a long keel also became a priority for me very early on even though the orcas hadn’t yet developed a taste for the rudder hors d’oeuvre. Reversing under engine could be an unhappy experience, but any boat can be tamed with a little practice and a few deep breaths – and then you have the bonus of earning the instant respect of your fellow mariners for every manoeuvre in tight quarters that doesn’t end in a crunch.
I once offered a line of my own homegrown wisdom on boat parking to a grizzled old Hamburg launch skipper: “If you’re going to get it wrong, you may as well get it wrong in style.” The start of an enduring friendship it wasn’t – but I could still run pretty fast in those days, and I still stand by the general sentiment.
My For Sale notice regarding LUANA elicited the following comment from Wilfried Krusekopf in Brittany:
If ever the announcement of boat for sale deserved to be described as a “rare opportunity”, this gem does. Yes, “small is beautiful” also applies, and in the case of LUANA there is “Unique and really seaworthy” too. I can just imagine the clichés bursting out of the beamy plastic fantastic mob – “doesn’t sail well”, “can’t point”, “no space below deck”, “too slow” – provided they aren’t dumbstruck with envy. It may also be the case that they were born too late to have heard or read about Laurent Giles. Out there somewhere though there must surely be a few younger heads with the vision to see beyond the ubiquitous standard white bathtub; young people who refuse to allow themselves to be manipulated by the nautical media and would prefer instead to invest in proven, longstanding fundamentals and the timeless value of seaworthiness. Perhaps one such youthful sage will happen across this sparkling gem and set off with it next spring for St. Kilda.
Wilfried Krusekopf
English Channel and Biscay pilotage and travel information
Things did not proceed as I had expected. The second-hand yacht market has just about ground to a halt, with wonderful, impeccably fitted-out craft of even highly respected brands failing to find new owners even when apparently priced to sell fast. Geopolitical developments and their impact on national economies have forced other priorities to the fore, reducing demand to a quite extraordinary extent and in all probability wiping out jobs and livelihoods on a significant scale (although not significant enough to spur any further action from our politicians, given the modest size of the industry). One look at the boat shows will suffice to confirm the consequences for the yacht industry – and the price of new boats today is certainly not going to help matters. The party’s over!
Is he a mind-reader?
Imagine my surprise, then, when I started receiving enquiries about LUANA, a design first built a century ago, from all over the world. Approximately 230 Vertues have been launched so far and the design has given rise to a colourful community of sailors around the globe. Many have completed a variety of spectacular races – and continue to do so. Almost all adhere to the golden rule, “keep it simple, stupid”, and a fair few make their way with a Windpilot perched at the back. We had even worked out costs for shipping to Brisbane using a flat rack container for one interested party, but then came a call from a French boatbuilder in Brittany with a penchant for classic vessels. He bought LUANA sight unseen, just pipping a number of other potential buyers from all over the world. Having bought many boats unseen on strength of feeling alone myself in the past, I respect his conviction. And that’s it: LUANA has gone to a new owner and for all we know, they could be casting off from their new home port in Brittany and setting sail for St. Kilda as you are reading these lines.
Wilfried was right then, and I am very pleased to see LUANA in caring new hands with the prospect of adventure to come. I dreamed it rather differently, of course, but in this respect at least, the story of my boat number 47 has reached a happy conclusion. Such is life!
23 February 2025
Peter Foerthmann
