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A Retired Racing Trimaran Becomes the Perfect

Liveaboard
JASON GARD • DEC 13, 2019

(From left) Simon, Braydon, Colin and Dave are all smiles during the boat’s first time back on the water after her
refit

They say you can learn a lot about a sailor just by looking at the type of boat he or
she owns. However, I’m not sure our boat, Spirit, reflects the personalities of my
wife, Claudia, and me as we try to live a quiet and simple life, taking each day as it
comes. Spirit very much stands out in a crowd. She’s fast, complex to sail and
definitely not quiet! She also sails incredibly well in light air, allowing us to sail 99
percent of the time. This gives us far more freedom and allows us to sail in those
light-air latitudes where most cruising yachts motor.

Spirit, or Spirit of England as she was formerly known, started her life in the UK
back in the early 1990s as the brainchild of Bruno Fehrenbachs. Bruno had
previously worked with multihull maven Nigel Irens. Having appreciated Irens’s
design of Tony Bullimore’s then newly launched trimaran Apricot, he decided to do
a smaller 40ft version, based around the Formula 40 Class that was popular at that Product
time. She was reportedly fitted out in David Irvin’s yard at Plymouth, England, Recommendations
around 1989, after which she soon came into the hands of an experienced sailor by Here are some supplies and
the name of Peter Clutterbuck. Peter went on to employ a very young Brian products we find essential. We may
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world with Loick Peyron and the Banque Populaire team in 2012) to crew her and
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race doublehanded with him: they won many races, including the Fastnet, and beat quality.
many records, like the Azores and Back Race record in 1995.

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Fast forward to 2008: I’d just turned 34 and my own sailing life was coming back into
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focus. I’d spent the previous 20 years working on yachts of all shapes and sizes, Bag
including 10 years spent working as a superyacht captain. As I was doing so I’d
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noticed how even those with millions at their disposal were no less lost or unhappy
than the rest of us, and that focusing on money didn’t seem to offer any kind of
solution. I’d also seen plenty of people in countries where they had only the basics
but kept smiling. In fact, they were often a lot happier and more present in the
moment than those I’d met with abundant wealth. There was something about a
simple life, one not focused on money, that called to me, and cruising my own
yacht seemed like a great way to do it. Ugo Waterproof Phone
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mooring in Newport, Rhode Island, where Dave, an old friend of mine, lives. After
watching Spirit for a few years being listed but not moving, I asked him if he would
check out her condition. He returned a positive report, saying that while she
needed some work there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a little elbow
grease. In September 2010, I booked my flight to Boston, and a new life of adventure
with Spirit began.

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Before my departure, I organized a viewing with her owner, William “Bill” Foster, a
pilot for Delta Air Lines. He’d been sailing Spirit on and off for years, but with his
four kids now getting older, time was limited and she was suffering for it. It was late
September, summer was over, autumn was in the air and the leaves were starting to
change color. I knew if I was to buy Spirit I had a limited amount of time to get her
ready and depart for the Caribbean before the seriously cold weather took hold.
The passage south from Newport can be brutal and having done it near on 20 times
I knew what we could be in for. I felt there was a clock ticking and an urgency to get
moving if this dream was to become a reality.

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LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

The first day I laid eyes on Spirit, it was pretty much love at first sight. Our sea trial
on Long Island Sound was a magic one, with light winds and flat water. She also
sailed extremely well. After going over her with a fine-tooth comb and working out
what needed to be done, I added up all the costs and reduced the asking price by
the same amount. I made my offer and Bill accepted. I’d gotten my dream boat for a
fair price, and she’d found herself a new owner.

After that I approached my good friends at the Newport Shipyard and worked out a
deal that would allow us haul Spirit quickly and start in on the work that was
needed. Upon inspecting Spirit the biggest concern were the decks on the amas,
which were rotten. The rest of her structure was in great condition; however, all the
electrics needed to be replaced, and her interior needed to be stripped out, painted
and cleaned up to make her more liveable. Her sails were also in good order and
would get us going. There were a lot of other odds and ends that came with her, but
they weren’t of much use for what we had in mind.

On hauling her out, we found that she had a lot of growth on her bottom, including
some of the largest barnacle clusters I’d ever seen, which only made her
performance on the sea trial more impressive. The shipyard found us a spot and
work began ripping apart the decks.

At first I’d planned to replace them with plywood and then carry out a replacement
in composite in Australia. However, after removing some large sections it was
evident that a far more thorough job needed to be done, and after getting some
solid advice and careful consideration I decided to employ composite expert Peter
Kallman to help out. (I know Peter would hate to be called an expert but he truly is;
we couldn’t have asked for someone better.)

Together, Peter and I went further than originally expected, eventually replacing all
the ama bulkheads and decks with a layer of Divinicell sandwiched between two
layers of unidirectional carbon, which improved overall strength and stiffness while
reducing overall weight. One of my goals from the outset had been to add value to
Spirit with any of the work we decided to carry out. We didn’t want to just replace
things, but also make Spirit a better and stronger boat overall. Joining us in our
efforts was my 16-year-old nephew Brayden from Australia. He was a little lost at
the time, and with a vision for adventure he took up my proposal of a leisurely bit
of boatyard work followed by a wonderful sailing trip south to the Caribbean.
Wasn’t he in for a shock!

With Peter in charge, we used the old decks as molds and quickly laid up the new
ones. We also ripped out all the interior wiring and anything else that wasn’t
needed and was therefore just unnecessary weight. Finally, we took off all the
redundant deck gear, replaced it with all-new Lewmar stuff, thereby simplifying the
layout, replaced the two aft shrouds and had all the rigging checked. Most of it was
in good order, and it was only the dynamic-loading rear shrouds that were worn,
with broken strands on each and lots of surface rust.

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Throughout, Brayden and I learned a lot and enjoyed our time in the shipyard.
Turning your dreams into a reality is something everyone should experience at least
once in their lives, and in our case, no matter how hard the endless grinding (or how
itchy we were later that same night trying to sleep), the following day we’d wake
ready and eager to get back to work and be on our way south.

Winter was now also starting to close in for real, motivating us to push that much
harder. Soon after hauling Spirit, we’d built tents around each of the amas as we
didn’t have time to wait for the right weather. (We needed to be able to work, rain
or shine!) We also decided to use fast-curing epoxies and commercial heaters to
heat the tents to keep things moving. Luckily we were well prepared for the job at
hand and Newport offers some of the finest tradespeople and marine-services
people in the world. It was therefore fast and easy to get anything we needed,
which helped immensely as we painted the interior and ran new wiring, replaced
the batteries and fully serviced both the 20hp Lombardini diesel engine and our
Gori folding propeller. Once the decks were made, we vacuum-bagged the edges
down for extra strength, after which Peter went inside and laid up the interior deck-
to-hull joints.

By now, with two months of hard graft behind us, Spirit was starting to come
together. At the same time it honestly couldn’t have come fast enough, as the days
were getting shorter and the temperatures were only just bearable, with snow
starting to fall. As someone who has spent most of his life in the tropics, living with
the cold isn’t easy. It gets into your bones, and the gray days start to make you feel
gray in general. Brayden and I were both dreaming of the warm sun’s rays and the
deep blue turquoise of the Caribbean!

Finally, after 10 weeks on the hard, it was time to get Spirit launched and back in the
water. Everyone was incredibly excited to finally go for a sail and see how well she
performed following all our work.

Braydon (left) and the author enjoy a much-deserved break

READY FOR SEA

It was now well into December. The breeze was icy cold, and the air was heavy and
dense as we bounced Spirit’s mainsail to the top of her 62ft carbon wing mast. She
flopped from float to float and felt like she was ready to take off with every puff.
Hauling in the main, we bore away and as the jib was unfurled she leapt into high
gear. With little aboard apart from our crew, she was much lighter than on our test
sail and with her clean bottom she just took off. We threw in a few tacks between
Jamestown Island and Newport, then headed north under the Newport Bridge. The
breeze was blustery, and Spirit handled well. All systems were working. She was as
ready as she’d ever be to begin the journey south.

For weeks, now, I’d been watching the weather on my iPad—a new way of navigating
for me, as it had only just been released along with the weather app Weather4D
Pro. The combination proved incredibly simple and smart. Having everything at my
fingertips was especially appealing since the ability to perform multiple tasks on a
single piece of equipment was very much in line with my simplistic approach to
sailing.

With respect to our upcoming passage, the weather windows in December are
often short. With only two to four days between lows it can be hard to find a
suitable window to get away from the coast and across the Gulf Stream and into
Bermuda, our first stop before continuing on the St. Maarten. From Bermuda, it
would be easier, as the conditions are warmer, and you’re away from the stream
with far more room to run off should conditions dictate it. We lined up our crew of
four: Brayden; my friend Colin; Simon, a veteran monohull sailor; and myself. For
better or worse, I was the only one aboard who’d been to sea on a boat with more
than one hull. It was going to be a fun and wild trip south, that was for sure!

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Ten days after the sea trial there looked to be a small break in the weather. A big
low was forecast to cross the coast, after which the forecast called for the wind to
go into northwest. The seas would be heavy, the breeze still gusting up around 30-
40 knots, but it would give us an opportunity to make the run for Bermuda with a
following wind and get safely into St. Georges before the wind went southwest
again.

As fate would have it, the forecast was spot on, and on the day of our departure,
there was a stiff 25-30 knots from the northwest as we left the Newport Yacht Club
Marina where Spirit had been moored. It was icy cold, and we were rugged up in
every bit of kit we could find. We flew over the water in Newport Harbor and out to
sea, making great time in the stiff breeze. Spirit was handling incredibly well with a
fourth reef in the mainsail and the staysail up. The reduced power allowed her to
handle the seas well and keep her bows up, with no sign of burying—even with the
short and solid 12-15ft seas running. We would launch down the face of a wave,
surfing at up to 24 knots, and then come gently into the trough where she’d slowly
make her way up the back of the wave in front and do it all again.

Three days later we pulled into Bermuda after completing the 600-mile passage at
an average speed of just under 9 knots. Spirit had proved herself and then some.
Even though the conditions were still fairly large the first few days out, she never
once made any of the crew feel unsafe. She sailed incredibly well. Her fine entry
and minimal volume surprised us with their seakeeping abilities.

Spirit rides out a gale tied up to the quay in Bermuda

BERMUDA TO ST. MAARTEN

After gorging ourselves on every type of cuisine we could get our hands on in
Bermuda, doing laundry, drying out the boat and enjoying that greatest of luxuries,
a hot shower, it was time to watch the weather again in anticipation of the passage
to St. Maarten. Although it was much warmer now than it had been in Newport, the
danger of a severe system moving off the coast was still there. In fact, the day after
we arrived in Bermuda a massive low came through, bringing with it huge seas
offshore and 60-knot gusts in St. Georges Harbor. Bermuda is such a strange place,
like a little boat floating in the North Atlantic, totally exposed to the elements. It’s a
colorful spot, but also brutal at times, thanks to winter lows from the west and
summer lows from the Caribbean.

Fortunately, the system passed quickly and with it, we felt we should set sail again.
The best part of departing in the wake of such systems is the favorable wind
direction. The worst part is that it can get pretty boisterous out there—something
we learned the hard way on our passage to St. Maarten. Nonetheless, though
Weather 4D was forecasting 30-40 knot gusts, we still wanted to get south as fast as
we could before we entered the trades and would have to contend with 25-30 knots
off the bow. I’m a firm believer in never arguing with the weather, and the plan is to
always try and run before it, even if it’s blowing in the 30s or more, especially if it
also means avoiding punching into 20 knots later on: sll the more so aboard a boat
like Spirit, since the latter can feel like being on a submerging submarine!

With the crew at the ready, we departed the following afternoon, giving ourselves
plenty of time to get well away from Bermuda while it was still light out. What
surprised us most was the fact we were still getting a solid 30-40 knots of wind two
days later when it should have started to drop off. The seas were also still big, with
solid swells up to 25ft rolling down upon us from the northwest.

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On our second evening out we had squall after squall pass us with the wind topping
out at over 52 knots, screaming through the rigging and pushing Spirit fast into the
darkness. It’s moments like these you just have to hold on and hope there’s nothing
in front of you. It’s exhausting, and afterward, you crawl into your bunk without
even removing the wet weather gear. As they say, though, what doesn’t kill you only
makes you stronger! (Though I’m not sure Brayden would agree, as he didn’t eat for
the first two days out of Newport or the first day out of Bermuda.)

Luckily, we eventually had lovely conditions as the wind dropped off, and we even
ran the engine for a bit to motor through the calm. At one point a pod of dolphins
jumped and wove its way around Spirit’s three bows, and we even managed a few
hours of clothes-drying during the midday heat. The morning after that we spotted
the hills of Marigot on the horizon and were soon sailing into Simpson Bay,
completing a passage of just under four days, and covering the roughly 850 miles at
an average speed of just over 10 knots.

As you can imagine, back onshore the showers and hot water had never felt better
and the food had never tasted so good. For sure there were hard moments, but in
life there are always hard moments. It’s just working out what ones you’re prepared
to go through to make your life what you want it to be.

After leaving the Caribbean, the author and Spirit continued on to Australia and
have since raced and cruised throughout the South Pacific and Asia, covering over
40,000 miles. Jason and his wife, Claudia
Claudia, are currently cruising aboard Spirit in
Southeast Asia. You can follow their adventures at trimaranspirit.weebly.com
trimaranspirit.weebly.com..

Photos by Jason Gard

MHS Winter 2019

· SPIRIT · MULTIHULL · TRIMARAN

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