Causing a Stir
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
When French yacht designer François Vivier submitted his Stir Ven drawings for the Classic Boat design competition in 1999, he can’t have expected the reaction his 22ft gaff sloop would produce.
The concept had, after all, already won a major design competition in France and the first boat built to the plans was about to be launched. The British competition judges, however, took a more sanguine view of his efforts.
The designer […] offers a boat that appears dangerously overcanvassed on a hull form that seems to lack inherent stability,’ thundered John Perryman. He went on to assert that the hull construction was ‘lacking in longitudinal integrity’, and that the boat would be impossible to ‘self-recover’ as claimed by the designer, before criticising the lack of coamings, small rudder and the ‘muddled’ tiller arrangement. He concluded by suggesting that: ‘At best this design offers great sport for beefy crew on trapezes with wetsuits and an aggressive attitude.’
History has, in fact, proven Mr Perryman wrong. To date, more than 60 boats have been built to the design by amateurs all over the world – without any of the dire consequences he predicted. The boats are happily used for family sailing and coastal hopping alike and have also been adapted for single-handed sailing. Indeed, the Stir Vens have become regular competitors at several ‘raids’, where small fleets of open boats race long passages in often exposed waters, without the crews having to resort to trapezes, wetsuits or any hint of aggression…
It was at the 2005 Blekinge Archipelago Raid along the south coast of
