VIVIER’S DESIGNS
ABER, 1985
out of all his designs, françois cites this as one of his favourites. he drew the lines in 1984, a derivation of his first sail-and-oar boat, the aven, of a few years previously. the centreboard pivots and the rudder slides vertically. françois describes this as an “excellent rowing boat” for one or two people, and a fast sailing boat. aber is the first boat françois designed to be home-built, in this case in strip-plank. a later redraw gives the option for clinker ply, which reduces the weight by 110lb (50kg). like others of his small lug-rigged, Breton-inspired small craft, aber is misainier-rigged after the fashion of the small workboats of the first half of the 20th century. this means that the high-peaked lug has no boom and the mainsheet must be unclipped and re-clipped to the other side of the stern every time the boat is tacked or gybed. loa 14ft 1in (4.3m) Beam 4ft 10in (1.5m) Disp 485lb (220kg) for clinker, 595lb (270kg) for strip sail area 102sqft (9.5m²) rcD cat c
top left: steffan meyric hughes
T
he usual wisdom of designing or building boats is to start small and work your way up. In 1975, the newly qualified naval architect François Vivier took his first job at the project department of Chantier de l’Atlantique, designing ro-ro ferries, gas and oil tankers and every other manner of large, commercial vessel. He already had an interest in sailing smaller boats, starting aged 10 in a Vaurien – a 1951 13ft (4m) bermudan dinghy designed by Jean-Jacques Herbulot, one of those cheap boats built of plywood and waterproof glue that got working people sailing in France after the war. Later, as a teenager, he spent years sailing with his father on the family’s Normandy Class Laurent Giles yacht. In 1981, he left the shipyard to co-found the French nautical magazine Chasse Marée with Bernard Cadoret, but stayed there just two years before returning to the business of big ships. “I was fed up of just writing. I’m an engineer!” he said, reliving his frustration as we sail
his little Pen-Hir (see last month’s CB) through a fleet of literally hundreds of his boats. It was during his time at Chasse Marée that he designed his first small boat, the Aven. “Aven was born from a long discussion I was having with Gérard d’Aboville [first man to row solo across both Atlantic and Pacific oceans] and Bernard Cadoret about an article I was writing.” That article was about an idea dear to both François and Bernard: the revival of ‘sail-and-oar’ boats. “Boats had become faster and more sophisticated,” remembers François as we sail past one of his Ebihen 18s. “But much less versatile. We wanted to revive the versatility of an old-style sail-and-oar boat, something you can sail on the sea and row on a river. Oars were always the old motor – even large ships would be rowed in port.” Two years after Avel, back in big ships again, François drew Aber for home-building in strip-plank. He still cites it as one of his favourite boats. After that, the creative floodgates were open and designs began to pour from
Above and left: Aber on paper and on the water
CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2013
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