Shipwrecked in a 12ft keelboat

Despite a sinking off Portugal, French sailor Yann Quenet hasn’t been put off his microyacht circumnavigation dreams. John Jameson reports

- John Jameson

Yann Quenet is a genius from Brittany I would love to meet. He is an inventor, designer, and builder of boats, mostly of marine plywood/epoxy, a material I have a great affinity with, having lived through the golden age of the Mirror, GP14 and other similar dinghies. At that time – in the 1970s – the sailing school where I worked in Brittany had 350 plywood keelboats, and dinghies, all designed and built for teaching sailing. I have circumnavigated in a home-built 10m ply/epoxy Wharram catamaran, and lived to write the book, Sea, Sun & Taraipo.

Yann is an experienced sailor. Currently he is halfway across the Pacific Ocean aboard a cheap and easy-to-build 12ft plywood keelboat named Baluchon. She is his second attempt at producing a minimalist ocean-going keelboat. His first attempt, Skrowl, had a similar-looking chunky, scow-shaped hull with leeboards, which he capsized off Portugal during his first attempt to cross the Atlantic in a 12ft micro-yacht. This is the story of his rescue.

His ill-fated voyage commenced in August 2015 from A Coruña in Northern Spain after he’d towed his boat there from France. When he was 450 miles short of Madeira he was overtaken by a gale, which the boat seemed to handle well, as she ran downwind. However, that night Yann was stretched out on the cabin sole, with the hatch wide open, when he was suddenly woken by a loud crash, and what felt like a bucketful of water on his head. He was catapulted forwards in a deluge of seawater and floating gear. His automatic lifejacket that he wore 24/7, inflated, and he found himself pinned to the new deck-head… the cabin sole!