This week was full of trips into the English Channel. First by sailboat on a personal tour of the Garcia boat-building facilities, then by ferry across to the UK.
We had finally arrived to visit the Allures/Garcia docks and their facilities in Cherbourg. We toured the Garcia/Allures factory as they were finishing up several Allures and Garcia yachts. A very impressive setup full of gleaming aluminum hulls and top quality fittings. The Allures and Garcias share almost similar hulls, differentiated by an additional set of features offered on the Garcia 45 Exploration. Extra tankage, a more central anchor locker and importantly, the clever pilot house design that allows for forward visibility from inside the salon. Looking at the construction of the Garcias that were mid-construction, we recognized this yacht would be best-in-class quality.
The folks at Garcia invited us to join them for a day on the water which would be our first sail on this boat. Onboard 'French Kiss', we head out into the Cherbourg Bay in 17 knots of wind and hit a sailing Speed over Ground of 10 knots on a broad reach & with a single reef set. This boat could sail!
The dual mainsheets on the Garcia were a new design to us. On each respective tack the two sheets controlled both Main Sail angle and the sail's twist. It seemed to be a simpler system than the more common, track based traveller setup that we were more familiar with. The ball bearing enhanced main sail track slid the Main up effortlessly and all the reefing lines and sheets were led back to a linear array of clutches in the cockpit. She felt very solid and safe and she keeled over and tracked nicely using her twin rudders. The local Irish ferry 'Oscar Wilde' turned up around the sea wall and we tacked to avoid her as she came plummeting towards us. A miss - as we tacked away, out of her path...
After our test sail, we took the ferry over to Poole, UK which was a short 3.5 hours. April was a perfect time of year to see spring blooms and green fields as we drove up through Wales northward.
