Shipwrecked in a 12ft keelboat

Yann Quenet is a genius from Brittany I would love to meet. He is an inventor, designer, and builder of boats, mostly of marine plywood/epoxy, a material I have a great affinity with, having lived through the golden age of the Mirror, GP14 and other similar dinghies. At that time – in the 1970s – the sailing school where I worked in Brittany had 350 plywood keelboats, and dinghies, all designed and built for teaching sailing. I have circumnavigated in a home-built 10m ply/epoxy Wharram catamaran, and lived to write the book, Sea, Sun & Taraipo.

Yann is an experienced sailor. Currently he is halfway across the Pacific Ocean aboard a cheap and easy-to-build 12ft plywood keelboat named . She is his second attempt at producing a minimalist ocean-going keelboat. His first attempt, , had a similar-looking chunky, scow-shaped hull with leeboards, which he capsized off Portugal during his first attempt to cross the Atlantic