After weeks and weeks of stressful “real life” work I at last found a Saturday to be spent in the shipyard at the Lake Mueritz, where my Omega 42 is being built. Apart from the fact that I haven´t seen the progress on the boats for almost two full months (!) now, it was a very emotional visit. It´s just making me so happy and calm. Everybody should get his own boat build, believe me, the best sedative from the oddness and all the vulgarity of life. Anyway … Right there: A companionway is missing As I stood there inside the boat – still, every time I visit the yacht it excites me how freaking b ..read more

Yesterday I´ve watched a movie on amazon Prime about which I wanted to do a review – since this movie was very thought-provoking, I couldn´t finish and upload the this film critics yesterday so that you could have enjoyed your traditional NO FRILLS SAILING long Sunday´s read. Anyways, I subsequently deliver today and maybe this is an inspiration for you to watch it yourself. Three couples on a boat „Perdidos“ is a Portuguese movie made in 2017 on a tight budget. Nevertheless, picture quality and cinematography are quite nice (at least better than the screenshots for this article since this mov ..read more

Concluding my three-article series about Outremer catamarans, I chose a production detail which I found decisively interesting whilst visiting the shipyard in La Grande Motte. You may have read my various posts about manufacturing a glass fiber reinforced plastic boat and specifically the articles about the sandwich core production. Here at Outremer, I noticed that they had stepped this technique up a notch … Portside sandwich laminated part For most sailboats I´ve seen in shipyards being made with a sandwich core construction, disregarding the material in use, all of them had been made with p ..read more

You may have read my previous article about the Outremer shipyard, which was very interesting. Now, that I´ve had a insight into how these boats are made, it was clear tome that the team of skilled craftsmen in La Grand Motte not only take pride in their work but as well manage to produce their boats with a very high emphasis on quality. Given the special circumstance and partially kind of worn-down facilities, an even bigger conclusion. There she is: Outremer 52! A couple of hundred meters further down the road where the marina basin of La Grande Motte harbour was filled up to the maximum wit ..read more

Oh, how I love this picturesque town of La Grande Motte! It has a very, very special flair and charm. Not least derived from its very strange history as being founded by a degree of Charles de Gaulle, the architecture of the city is a strange mixture of brutalism, art and a good portion of James Bond-ish evil headquarter. I really like it. Ah, how I love this place! For some reason, La Grande Motte of the French Camargue is turned into the center of the world when it comes to multihull sailing boats, meaning catamarans and trimarans. The “Multicoque” show draws more and more visitors. I am att ..read more

It´s Friday morning and I am sitting in my gorgeously renovated Air b´n´b flat at La Grande Motte, sipping a hot coffee. The view is breathtaking, a foaming sea is rolling onto the shore, I just love to listen to the sound of the breaking waves! A last rain shower is drifting by, behind the dark clouds a gloriously blue sunny new day is approaching: The boat show weekend is coming! Loads of visitors … Each year in April the picturesque southern France marina of La Grande Motte turns into the center of the catamaran-world when “The Multicoque” opens its doors. As a dealer for the products of Gr ..read more

It sounds like an April´s fool joke, but it isn’t: As per decision made some weeks ago, the utilization, storage and selling of one of the best bottom paints is now forbidden. International´s VC 17 m is – well, was – widely used predominantly for fresh water bottom paints, as we do for the Lake of Constance for example. Our last yachts have finally prepared with this antifouling paint are now handed over. The search for an effective alternative is on. Many will switch to VC Offshore bottom paint, some (as we will as well) will try Hempel´s Hempaspeed TF. Thing of the past: Copper colored VC 17 ..read more

Late this week I visited our Teak supplier and joinery craftsman to collect some new wooden gratings and other Teak products for our clients. Visiting the workshop of a craftsman is always highly interesting, seeing half-finished projects of all sorts. Our specializes in deck repair and fittings of completely new decks. My gratings are merely a sidekick for him. And so the huge workshop was filled with a colorful variety of more or less finished deck flooring parts: Most of them being PVC-based. Since the embargo of real Teak, the price went up so high that wooden decks are very seldom. The ne ..read more

When I visit the shipyards of our brands I regularly get questions by our guests and clients about the utilization of wooden sandwich core material, namely Balsa. Many guests are kind of astonished to see that this material is still in use. Somehow, apparently, many people have the impression that Balsa was a material “of the past”, a kind of “has been done in the Seventies and Eighties”. Seeing the boats being made with Balsa, our guests often ask many questions. So I thought it might be useful to write an article about this particular topic. A Balsa-cored hull in the shipyard A sandwich comp ..read more

This is an article I wanted to do for a long time. And I originally wanted to call it “I am fucked”. Now, ending my series on Boot boat show Duesseldorf 2024 I will finally be doing it. You may have read the article that I´ve called “I am blessed” where I am kind of rhapsodizing about working in the boating industry. It´s a true thing and I mean every single word. But it´s a bit one-sided as I focus on the good sides, the sunny side, the highlights of my job. I´ve received quite some nice feedback on this article and I regularly do when posting about my adventures in social media. Well, of cou ..read more