![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/jimmy-boats-aventura4-1a.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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For much of my sailing life I have been trying to find out if there was such a thing as an ideal cruising boat. With this in mind, I conducted several surveys among cruising sailors<\/a>, I spoke to designers and boat builders, but the more I tried, the farther my target receded in the distance. Eventually I concluded that my dream, was just that, a dream, so I might as well accept defeat, settle with what I\u2019ve got and make the best of it, which is exactly what I did. So when I decided to sell Aventura III<\/a> <\/em>that forlorn dream was finally put to rest\u2026 or so I thought.<\/p>\n Even after I had taken the decision\u00a0 to launch the Blue Planet Odyssey<\/a>, the thought never occurred to me that I\u00a0 would sail in it, and most certainly not on my own boat.<\/p>\n Navigable the Northwest Passage may be, but\u00a0 the challenges associated with a successful transit, especially from east to\u00a0 west, are still considerable, so I decided that, as the proponent of that idea,\u00a0 it was my responsibility to lead by example, and attempt that transit myself.<\/p>\n With hardly a year left until the\u00a0 planned start, I had to quickly find a suitable boat for that voyage and,\u00a0 having looked around at all that was available, I decided that finally I had an\u00a0 unmissable opportunity to come up with a concept which would be nearest to that\u00a0 elusive ideal cruising boat. I was extremely fortunate in being able to infect\u00a0 with my enthusiasm Stephan Constance, the manager of Garcia Yachting<\/a> and \u00a0Allures Yachting<\/a>, in my\u00a0 view the best aluminium yacht builders in the world, and also Olivier\u00a0 Racoupeau, one of France\u2019s top yacht designers.<\/p>\n Aventura IV<\/p><\/div>\n My requirements were very clear: a\u00a0 strong, fast, comfortable, functional and easily handled boat perfectly suited\u00a0 for both high latitude and tropical sailing.<\/p>\n Many of the best features in my\u00a0 previous boat were to be incorporated into the new one: an unpainted aluminium\u00a0 hull, centreboard, shallow draft, cutter rigged.<\/p>\n What was new, however, was my\u00a0 insistence on a deck saloon that would ensure almost all-round visibility. This\u00a0 was something that had never been tried before on a centreboard yacht, primarily\u00a0 because the added height may affect its stability. By settling for a low deck\u00a0 saloon, and thus accepting the unavoidable compromise of limited headroom, the\u00a0 designer produced what I believe to be the perfect solution: a comfortable and\u00a0 spacious deck saloon with 270\u00b0 <\/strong>vision without\u00a0 compromising either the stability of the yacht or its looks.<\/p>\n Opting for a two\u00a0 rudder configuration was the logical solution on this shallow drafted\u00a0 centreboard boat, as the leeward rudder will ensure finger-tip steering as I\u00a0 experienced when I tested the Allures 45, with which this boat shares most\u00a0 underwater characteristics.<\/p>\n Being of the old\u00a0 brigade persuasion of the traditional propeller shaft, it took a while to be\u00a0 persuaded of the advantages of a saildrive on this type of boat, being assured\u00a0 that the cone of a centrally located propeller will act on the rudders much\u00a0 more effectively than a propeller set at the end of a long shaft.<\/p>\n Agreeing to a bow\u00a0 thruster took an even greater effort of persuasion, until I remembered the\u00a0 nightmare of maneuvering in some Mediterranean marinas where the distance\u00a0 between pontoons was often shorter than that of my boat. A humiliating\u00a0 compromise this certainly was, but it may also be the one factor that may\u00a0 persuade Gwenda to give Med cruising another try.<\/p>\n One area where I\u00a0 was not prepared to compromise was the interior arrangement where I told the\u00a0 designer that I wanted to have as many comfortable sea berths as he could\u00a0 possibly squeeze into a 45 foot boat. The need for all those berths was the\u00a0 large number of friends that I suddenly found I had once it became known that I\u00a0 intended to sail through the Northwest Passage.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/antarctic-ice1.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Everything changed\u00a0 when I started looking into the logistics of the northern route, whose most challenging section was to be the transit of the Northwest Passage. Those of you who have\u00a0 been following the evolution of the Blue Planet Odyssey<\/em> know that its main\u00a0 mission is to raise awareness of the effects of climate change. And nowhere are\u00a0 those effects more obvious than in the Northwest Passage which has only become\u00a0 navigable in recent years as a direct result of global warming.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/jimmy-boats-aventura4-1.jpg\")
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