Gerard Cok Sailing Experiences

This blog shares the passion: what moves or sails, what’s new and what’s great! Let’s embark !

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  • Gerard Cok selection of the week : Elan 400

    Gerard Cok selection of the week : Elan 400

  • Class Ocean50 - Boat for Breizh World Tour 2017-2018

    Class Ocean50 - Boat for Breizh World Tour 2017-2018

Selected Cruisers

Selected Cruisers

Fast, confortable, seaworthness, strong... A personal selection of what can be called 'Fast Ocean Cruisers'.
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Explorations

Explorations

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery... (source: wiki)
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Vimeo

Vimeo

All about sailing on vimeo
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Gerard Cok

Gerard Cok

About me
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Un nouveau cata volant : le Whisper

La voile légère n’a pas fini de nous faire voler. Et ce nouveau cata anglais, qui sera présenté la semaine prochaine au Salon de Paris, vient gonfler l’offre d’engins à foils dans le sillage du Flying Phantom mais avec quelques différences…

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The Builders Behind the Boats

Take a look at this video and you’ll wish it was longer than 4 minutes. It provides a glimpse into not only the world-famous catamaran builders Robertson and Caine’s factory and production line, but also the pride that goes into building Leopard Catamarans and their sister ships that go into The Moorings and Sunsail fleets. For those of us who don’t have any plans to go to Cape Town and tour the production facilities and meet the staff, this is the next best thing.

N’oubliez pas la Volvo !

Bien sûr il y a la Route du Rhum et je ne suis sûrement pas le seul à me connecter dès le réveil et à remettre ça quasiment toutes les heures pour suivre la course. Mais en attendant que toute la flotte partie de Saint-Malo attrape les alizés, nous pouvons déjà savourer la première arrivée de la Volvo. Le vainqueur du parcours entre Alicante (Espagne) et Le Cap (Afrique du Sud) est Abu Dhabi, skippé par Ian Walker qui arrive 12 minutes devant Dongfeng skippé par Charles Caudrelier et 4 heures devant Team Brunel de Bouwe Bekking…

La Volvo Ocean Race, c’est cette course autour du monde en équipage qui a lieu tous les trois ans et dont la dernière édition a été gagnée – cocorico – par Franck Cammas et son équipage sur Groupama. Sur cette nouvelle édition, les bateaux sont un peu plus petits, beaucoup moins puissants mais ils empruntent à peu de chose près le même parcours avec des équipages encore plus réduits. Autant dire que c’est du sport de haut niveau, même si les bateaux sont un peu moins physiques. Et comme les équipages embarquent obligatoirement un reporter, on ne manque pas d’images ni de récits d’ambiance à bord pour vivre la course au plus près. Bon, le site de la course est encore plus compliqué que celui de la Route du Rhum mais ne boudons pas notre plaisir. Cette première étape est déjà très riche d’enseignements.

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Route du Rhum. Ultime : Banque Populaire VII connait déjà bien la route

Dans la catégorie Ultime de la Route du Rhum, il y a le petit groupe des 100 pieds. Dont Banque Populaire VII, tenant du titre quand il s’appelait encore Groupama 3.

Aux côtés de l’immense Spindrift 2 et des Multi70, autres membres de la très select catégorie Ultime à prendre le départ de la Route du Rhum, il y a le petit groupe des 100 pieds. Banque Populaire VII est l’un de ceux-là.

Banque Populaire VII est le plus long de ce groupe. Il s’agit de l’ancien Groupama 3 tenant du titre avec Franck Cammas. Il devait être mené par Armel le Cléac’h. mais le Finistérien s’est gravement blessé à une main l’été dernier et a dû passer le manche. Qui échoit donc à… Loïck Peyron, décidément joker de luxe pour l’armateur.

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2014 ANNAPOLIS BOAT SHOW: Jimmy’s New Boat

Not surprisingly, one of the big draws at this year’s U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis has been the new Garcia Exploration 45, developed by French builder Garcia Yachts in cooperation with bluewater sailing guru, author, and ARC founder Jimmy Cornell. I’m a big fan of Garcia, which has been building boats for 40 years now, both because they build in aluminum and because they do it exceedingly well. In the last several years most of their boats have been large stratoshperic custom jobs, well beyond the reach of mere mortals with less than a couple of million to spend, so it’s heartening to see them again building something a bit more accessible.

Jimmy and I have some history, as I first met him crewing around in his America 500 cruising rally way back in 1992, so he was happy to show me around the boat this past Thursday shortly after the show opened. After retiring from the rally racket some years ago, he took to roaming the planet in aluminum centerboard Alubats and spent some time cruising in high latitudes. So he had some pretty specific ideas about what he wanted when he approached Garcia about building his next boat.

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Preparing for the Indian Ocean

Jamie and I co-author the cruising column for 48° North, a Pacific Northwest regional boating magazine. He lead on this piece for their for October issue, with ruminations about what lies ahead for us with a big year coming. The complete magazine is free on newstands around the Salish Sea, and available online wherever you are.

Transition then Monsoon

Southwest monsoon season is active here in the Malacca Straits. Intense squalls with cold, biting rain, and streaks of lightning that are always too close divide the day’s oppressive heat. It is extreme weather – eerily calm, blindingly bright or catastrophically loud. Local fishermen live the pattern of these conditions, in rickety open boats.

Transitions between monsoon seasons are less predictable. Last year in southern Phuket Thailand a strong southeasterly surprised many sailors, leaving 40 boats firmly planted on the beach. Wind from the southeast, outrageous! What’s next- westerly winds?

It’s easy to fall into patterns that fit the season. Whether calm anchorages with good Thai food just a dinghy ride away or squally nights with a mug of strong coffee, cruising sailors adapt then settle, transition then monsoon. Sailing between regions confuses the pattern. We’re in monsoon season now, but on board Totem it’s all about transition as we gear-up to cross the Indian Ocean.

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Understanding engine overheating problems

Why is the engine overheating? Our Yanmar engine’s shrill alarm was the jarring start to some stressful hours during the last five months, and we asked that question many times. The answer was not one root cause, but more likely a series of related events, as a domino effect of different issues cascaded. I’ve written about the painful side of this before, but less so the final diagnosis and fix, so this is for cruisers like Mark, Lynn & Rick, Gary, and others who reached out and asked to learn from our experience.

It all started when tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. We’ve had great performance from our Yanmar 4JH3/TE, and want to maintain it properly so it continues to serve Totem well. In April, it had a major service (5,000 hour) done while we spent time on Langkawi island, a pretty spot at the far north of Malaysia’s west coast. This was a big line item on the pre-Indian Ocean checklist we’ve been working through as our budget allows.

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Un nouveau JPK 100% croisière

On joue l’alternance à fond chez JPK Composites. Un coup la course, un coup la croisière… Après le JPK 10.10 qui a réussi à ramasser tous les trophées disponibles en course, le chantier de Jean-Pierre Kelbert avait sorti le JPK 38, un épatant bateau de grande croisière élu Voiler de l’année dès sa sortie. Cette année, c’est le 10.80 qui a commencé une brillante carrière de régatier en s’imposant en réel et en compensé sur la première étape atlantique de la Transquadra. Et l’année prochaine on revient sur le versant croisière…

Le JPK 45 annonce la couleur avec un dog house qui offrira un formidable poste de veille à l’abri des éléments. On remarque également la face avant du rouf, presque verticale et protégée par une petite casquette pour limiter l’effet de serre (on est bien loin de la solution adoptée sur le JPK 38). Toujours dessiné par le génial Jacques Valer, le JPK 45 est équipé d’un bas-étai qui reçoit une trinquette sur enrouleur, bien utile pour tirer de long bords dans la brise, mais aussi d’une solide delphinière qu’on utilisera pour amurer de belles voiles de portant : y a pas de mal à se faire du bien ! Comme le JPK 38, le 45 sera proposé avec une quille relevable (1,50/2,95 m de tirant d’eau) ou une quille fixe (2,20 m). Les emménagements se caractérisent par une table de carré décalée et surélevée sur bâbord, une cuisine en long sur tribord, et le choix entre deux cabines arrière double ou bien une cabine double et un grand atelier. Sur plan, c’est alléchant !

Source: http://www.voilemagazine.com/2014/09/nouveau-jpk-100-croisiere/#more-14868

SINGLEHANDED CRUISING WOMEN: Liz Clark and Nike Steiger

Just because I’m aware of (and somewhat amused by) the fact that many, if not most women on cruising boats have been lured aboard by the men in their lives doesn’t mean I think this is proper or desirable. Au contraire. It is not nearly as common as I wish it was, but it is certainly not unheard of for women to sail boats of their own alone and unaided. Of course, we can all tick off the names of several solo women racers, but there are also a few solo women cruisers out there who aren’t nearly as well known. Everyone remembers names like Tania Aebi and Laura Dekker, but they gained their notoriety setting records. I bet not too many remember women like Julia Hazel, who built herself a boat and quietly cruised around the world on her own during the 1980s and ’90s.

Women like this are important, I think, because they serve as real-world role models for both women and men who aspire to cruise under sail–for women, because they demonstrate that women are clearly capable of sailing and maintaining a boat on their own, and for men, because they demonstrate it is possible to bring a very different mind-set to the game.

Two of the solo women cruisers I’m most interested in these days are Liz Clark (see photo up top), who sails an old Cal 40 called Swell, and Nike Steiger, who sails a twin-keeled aluminum Reinke Super 10 named Karl.

This viddy clip here, from a film called Dear & Yonder, about women surfers, gives a good sense of Liz Clark’s adventure. She was a top competitive surfer in California–the 2002 collegiate Women’s National Champion–who also had spent six months cruising Mexico with her family when she was a child. After graduating from school with a degree in Environmental Studies, she pursued a dream of skippering and cruising aboard her own boat so she could explore remote surf breaks and minimize her footprint on the planet.

Liz took off from California in 2005, has been cruising around the Pacific ever since aboard Swell, and has been blogging about it since 2008. In case you’re wondering about the “Love and the Single Cruising Girl” aspect of Liz’s journey, I recommend you start your perusal of her blog with this post here, which describes a disturbing relationship she got involved in in French Polynesia. It gives an idea of how courageous and level-headed she is.

Source: http://www.sailfeed.com/2014/09/singlehanded-cruising-women-liz-clark-and-nike-steiger-2/

Qui veut rêver ?

Après quelques années compliquées consacrées à la construction de son 65 pieds Dagda à Saint-Martin, Guy Delage prend enfin du bon temps dans les îles vénézuella. L’équipage de ce grand bateau aussi écolo que possible dans sa conception mettra bientôt le cap sur Panama et le Pacifique, avec les Marquises et les Tuamotu en ligne de mire. Il y a d’ailleurs deux places d’équipiers à prendre entre Panama et Tahiti, via le îles Coco. Pour en savoir plus sur les conditions d’embarquement pour cette transpacifique, écrire à perunboats@yahoo.f.

Source: http://www.voilemagazine.com/2014/09/veut-rever/