Getting a quick shower and prepping my sandwiches. Do we have everything, Ester? Yes, ofcourse. Ester is always planning, and making lists. Yesterday evening she stowed the car with camping gear and together we lifted our heavy life raft in the back. So, this sleepy head doesn’t need to think right now. Just drive, and there is little traffic as we leave. Our plan is traveling this thursday, camping in the evening, factory visit tomorrow, and return drive in the night, or on Saturday. We’ll see how it goes.

At the shipyard

I slept good on my double matrasses, and so did Ester, as she said my snooring was little. So we continue our journey to JPK, and we arrive at coffee time, which the JPK-Team enjoys in their outdoors ‘picknick’ corner. Jean-Baptiste fetches us some cups and Jean-Pierre comes to us in a working overall. During coffee JP explains he inspected a damaged JPK39. This yacht with fixed keel did hit the rocks badly, sailing at a speed of 8,5 Knots!

Safe design and safe construction

JP shows some pictures. Ouch… We see the lead bulb down at the keel is totally distorted. It had absorbed a lot of the kinetic energy, but still the keel fin itself had pressed, on its aft side, badly upwards in the hull. The pressing is visible by means of numerous cracks. Can you image, a keel-rock-collision at 8,5 knots boatspeed and the hull still in its original shape and the boat able to sail? Jean Pierre explains about the keel construction and how the repair needs to be done.

The final installation leg

Last Monday the deck and hull were put together. So we finish our coffee and move inside and … there she is.

Three man are working inside, and therefore we walk around the deck and notice top and hull are seamed together nicely. During our last visit we discussed the operation of our electric engine, and as agreed with Julien, on both cockpit sides is installed one Oceanvolt throttle now. Practically all deckware is installed and so are the NKE, Garmin and Oceanvolt screens in the cockpit bulkheads.

Aymeric is now teamleader on our boat and he shows us around. Then we fetch our 45 kg life raft (including 9 ltr of water) from our car and put it aside the 39. Aymeric skratches his head.. and smiles. Next time we will hopefully see how it fits.

Lunch time excursion: La Base sailing vibes

At lunchtime we go to Boulevard Roger le Port at the ‘Rade du Loriënt’, and on a bench we eat our sandwiches. The Imoca ‘Groupe Apicil’, skippered by Damien Seguin, sails in. We finish our lunch and drive to La Base, on the other side. Loriënt-La Base is representing themselve as The international offshore racing centre.

France, and partically Brittany, is a true sailing nation. Kids at primairy school pay attention to the Vendee Globe race, and winners of the round the globe races, are life time heroes in France. On ‘quai de glorieux’ you will find their sailing legends. I appreciate the French way of honouring their sailors. And besides the French, they also honour other big names in sailing, like for instance Ellen Mac Arthur. She was the fastest British solo around the world sailor in 2005.

Racing solo around the world is a very dangerous and tough topsport. France is more or less the centre of the global races and a lot of the participants come from France. There is the Vendee Globe (‘Everest of the seas’) for monohulls and the Arkea Ultim Challenge for multihulls. These are tough races. Is there anything alike in sports? One could say the GGR, while it takes more day’s in classic yachts to circumnavigate.

La Base is all about sailing vibes. You will find top racing yachts here.

Back to the shipyard

Around 1 AM we return to the factory. After Friday morning a big part of Team JPK Team has weekend, so we don’t stand in the way as we take a close look at the inside of our 39.

Plantroom

I am particularly interested in the plant room. How do the installation components fit in? There is a lot ‘to stow away’.

Well, one could say it is ‘pretty compact’, but yes it fits in. It seems our mock up test with Julien, earlier in April, was executed allright. Only the boiler and the starting battery of the generator are moved away, below the bed in the port aft cabin. As agreed, everything is wired in marine-grade cabling.

Saloon

In the saloon the carpenting is mostly done. The induction stove plus electric oven are installed and likewise are the lights and cooling fans. The wiring inside the nav station cabinet is still in progress.

Close to the finish, but still work to be done

But it’s not done yet. Several parts on the factory floor are awaiting to be installed.

In the afternoon, we say goodbye to Julien, who is working now on a NOMAD 40. JP is away to the damaged 39 and as we leave the JPK Composites shipyard we are impressed by the progress, but also aware of the work, still to be done. Underway, at a camping in Pont Farcy, we take a good night rest and on Saturday we continue home with a short stop and diner at Ester’s daughter in Nijmegen.

As said, we are close to the finish, but yet an important stage is about to come, which is testing and commissioning. And then we have the launching, an exiting moment, which is expected beginning of July. How will it go?

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