I’m going to start this article in a slightly obtuse manner by talking about my aunt. You may be astonished to hear that she was married to my uncle, a passionate sailor and – when it came to boating – a total lunatic. My aunt had very little interest in sailing but was repeatedly dragged out on unsuitable days to supply the storm-tossed crew with sandwiches and hot drinks while they sailed through a set of overfalls or negotiated a drying sandbar – usually while repeating the mantra ‘where the hell are we’ (this was in the days before GPS fixes). After several years of this, my aunt got sick of this and decided to take matters into her own hands. She did her Day Skipper exam and was therefore able to quietly wrest back some control of voyages and make sure they were less terrifying. To this day she professes to have almost no interest in boats.
All of which brings me to Outremer Week – well, sort of. This is a very welcome programme put together by French multihull manufacturer Outremer who is well known for producing fast cruising cats that are the crème de la crème of the genre. As such, demand is high and, in common with all boat manufacturers, waiting lists are long. Yet Outremer has rightly realised that this waiting time does not have to be wasted, so twice a year, the boatbuilder invites prospective owners out to La Grande Motte on France’s
