BOATS Building a Béniguet Building a Béniguet ABOVE Aricie’s owner Nic Compton is introduced to the Béniguet, a Robert Crawshaw takes the helm sailing off one sensible trailer-sailer that can be built from a kit of the dozens of small islands off St Malo – and then he shows how she’s constructed RIGHT Builder Pierre-Yves de la Riviere holds the jib sheet veryone, it seems, loves a – is so busy. There’s everything from – like the sensible boyfriend or girlfriend The inspiration for the Béniguet came trailer-sailer. With mooring William Garden’s Eel and Iain Oughtred’s you end up marrying after you’ve been from the realisation that, while many costs on the increase and Wee Tern, both pretty little double-enders, through a string of glamorous but clients loved the performance of Vivier and disposable income on the to Phil Bolger’s Chebacco and the Milford ultimately unsuitable partners with more de la Riviere’s first collaboration, the 22ft decrease (according to the 20, both based on sharpie lines. There’s attitude than sense. Or, as the editor of Stir Ven, they found the boat quite hard EOffice of National Statistics), it makes a the very traditional-looking Design 074 one eminent boating magazine put it: she work to sail – or “trés physique”, ie very lot of sense to build or buy a boat you from George Whisstock and, at the more just “looks so right”. physical, to use the French term – and can pop on a trailer and ‘moor up’ on modern end, the Cape Cutter 19, with its That’s no accident. The design evolved there’s no doubt the accommodation Photos: Nic Compton your driveway. wide transom and beamy, powerful hull from a long-standing relationship between space on board was limited by her The annual cost of mooring my little 25ft – almost a miniature Open 60 in disguise. designer François Vivier and boatbuider shallow, flat hull sections. What was shape that doesn’t end up looking like a cruisers which end up with chicken coops wooden sloop at Brighton marina five All these designs are exercises in Pierre-Yves de la Riviere. After working on needed, says de la Riviere, was a boat large yacht that’s just been squished on them instead of cabins. years ago was upwards of £2,500 per compromise; what you gain in speed, you commercial shipping for half a lifetime, that was “smaller but more liveable, more lengthwise is the main challenge with this With the Béniguet, Vivier has got it just year, and you have to do a lot of sailing to lose in accommodation, trailability or Vivier helped launch the French magazine stable and less physical”. type of boat. The key is creating the right right. The spoon bow and understated justify that expenditure. We didn’t, and aesthetics... and so on. Chasse-Marée in the mid-1980s and By the time he produced the Béniguet in cabin shape, with just the right amount of sheer make for a pretty hull shape, while eventually sold the boat rather than fork And then there’s the Béniguet. She’s started designing traditionally inspired 2006, Vivier had 20 years’ experience in camber and sweep, which marries perfectly the cabin is substantial without looking out more money. probably not the fastest or the roomiest or small boats soon after. His partnership with small boat design under his belt, with the hull, not just from the side but from excessive. This is partly because of the All of which explains why the market for even the prettiest of the bunch, but she is de la Riviere began in 1997 and eventually experience which is evident in myriad ways. every angle. This might sound obvious, but clever use of camber but also subtle pocket cruising boats under 20ft – one of the most well thought through and developed into a line of professionally built Firstly there’s the aesthetic element: it’s much harder to achieve on this size touches, such as the way the coamings particularly those you can build at home cleverest pocket cruisers on the market boats and kits for amateur construction. drawing a boat with a genuinely pretty boat, as testified by the numerous pocket are incorporated into the cabin sides ➜ 36 Practical Boat Owner • www.pbo.co.uk Practical Boat Owner • www.pbo.co.uk 37 BOATS Building a Béniguet The Béniguet fore and aft, all the better to draw your eye is designed for down the boat’s sheer. comfort rather than Then there are the practical details that speed, but she’s no speak of someone who has been here slouch either before and has already anticipated most of the problems. An obvious example of this is the shortened keel, which runs for three-quarters the length of the hull before The heavily cambered rising up to the outboard well. It seems coachroof gives a slightly counter-intuitive, but it makes surprising sense of space launching the boat much easier (with down below, with two short rudder and outboard raised, there’s bunks forward almost no draught right aft) without seeming to have any negative effect on the boat’s performance. Likewise the centreboard has been positioned far The teak finished deck is Traditional bronze enough aft to clear the cabin – the case an optional extra; painted fittings giveAricie a protrudes just enough to create a handy plywood is standard gnarly traditional feel ledge for a step – without producing any noticeable lee helm. There are also telling smaller details, such as the design of the outboard well, which incorporates a ‘wet’ area on either side, where the outboard can be laid when under way. Alternatively, the outboard can be stored in one of the cockpit lockers – placing the weight where it should be: as near the middle of the boat as possible – and the ‘wet’ area can be used for stowing fishing and diving gear. epoxy and sheathed me out on the Béniguet he keeps on a higher freeboard, larger cabin, self-draining Another important ‘This is a stable, with a 5mm brass mooring near the Breton port of St Malo. cockpit and easier manoeuvrability. A bronze horse development in the forgiving boat that I strip. The whole aim And he should know. Before buying Aricie, Since he bought Aricie, Robert has carries the boat’s design was is to take advantage he owned two Stir Vens, the first of which mainly cruised the coast around St Malo mainsheet over the move towards can sail single-handed’ of the inherent he bought new from Pierre-Yves in 1999, and the neighbouring Baie de St Briac. On the tiller – note the digital cutting (ie stability of plywood, and the second which was built as a one hair-raising outing, he and his partner sculling notch CNC), which Vivier had made three years while using solid timber for decorative or replacement when the first was lost in a Chris got caught out in a storm off the earlier with the design of the Minahouet, non-structural parts. storm in 2003. After sailing both boats infamous Cape Fréhel but were able to surf his first design fully optimized for CNC (see It’s a quantum shift from using CNC around the north coast of Brittany for 14 the waves and take shelter in a shallow PBO, October 2018). From the outset, the simply to cut the component parts of a years, he eventually swapped his Stir Ven inlet thanks to the boat’s shallow draught. Béniguet was conceived as a kit, either for traditionally designed boat, with all the for a second-hand Béniguet in 2013. There were no such dramas on the day amateur or professional assembly, and has inherent limitations of traditional “This is a much more stable, forgiving we took her out for a run off St Malo. all the advantages of a modern plywood boatbuilding. The benefit for the boat,” he says, “that I can sail single- Indeed, the boat was simplicity itself to construction. Most of the boat is professional boatbuilder is speed of handed if necessary. The centerboard sail. Up went the gaff mainsail, down went assembled from interlocking plywood construction, while for the amateur builder arrangement on the Stir Ven means you the centreboard, out went the jib, and we Things got components, held together with epoxy and the main advantages are ease of have a crew on board; you can’t helm and were off. There was some slight confusion interesting when sheathed with epoxy-glassfibre. Even the construction and improved accuracy. adjust the centreboard at the same time.” about which jib was fitted and we ended the photographer keel is made from a single length of “This is the wise man’s boat,” says Other considerations that persuaded him up with the smaller one by mistake, but as clambered onto the plywood, reinforced with 15mm of Robert Crawshaw, the British former to swap were the internal outboard well the wind soon gusted up to Force 4, that foredeck... laminated solid timber, encapsulated in university lecturer who has agreed to take (the Stir Ven has a bracket on the transom), was probably just as well. ➜ 38 Practical Boat Owner • www.pbo.co.uk Practical Boat Owner • www.pbo.co.uk 39 BOATS Building a Béniguet The height of the cabin trunk is The anatomy of a home-build disguised by carrying the sides into the fore Retired joiner/ and aft coamings builder Chris Comerie decided to build a Béniguet after months of research – including building a mock trailer to make sure he could get the boat down the drive of his remote farmhouse in Cumbria.