30 years with an Alberg 30
 I
was extremely surprised when some members of the Chesapeake Bay Alberg
30 association asked me if I thought the AL30 was a good sea boat.
What a question! I never doubted it and was very surprised that
anybody could. I purchased my AL30 in July 1973 and sailed it from
Port Hope, on Lake Ontario to Lake Champlain by way of the St. Lawrence
and Richelieu Rivers. The following autumn, I headed South via the
Intracostal Waterway and sailed to the West Indies, taking my departure
form Beaufort and sailing 1400 miles to Sint Maarten. As it
often happens, I had left much too late and could not take off before
Dec. 10th. Soon after we entered the Gulf Stream, the wind settled
to the South-East and increased in force until it reached severe gale
force. Lacking experience, I stuck to the rhumb line and sailed as
close to the wind as I could, tacking on the windshifts under
triple-reefed main and storm jib. Needless to say, the passage was
extremely rough and since it was my first offshore experience, I had no
reference point and kept telling myself that a boat needed to be built
extremely strong to be taken offshore as the boat was slamming into the
throughs.
 After
one week of this kind of punish-ment, the wind shifted to the East and
then North-East as we met the trade winds, landing in St-Maarten after
14 days at sea. The only damage suffered by the boat was the two
forward lower shroud chainplate gussets that had de-laminated from the
hull.
This convinced me
of the excellent sea-keeping qualities of the Alberg 30. I have
owned mine more than 30 years now and after more than 50,000 miles, I
have the same opinion. Contemporary boats are quite a bit beamier,
usually with a flatter bottom which favors planing off the wind.
While a beamier boat has more initial stability in flat water, it will
be much more affected by the sea when it is no longer flat. The
Alberg 30 is comparatively narrower, with a V-shaped bottom, which does
not provide great initial stability (it needs to be reefed early), but
the trade-off is a much more seakindly movement through a seaway.
And this lower initial stability does not prevent it from sailing
to weather, as this first ocean passage had demonstrated.
I named my boat
Jean-du-Sud after a song written by the famous poet and folk
signer Gilles Vigneault, inspired by his father who was a fisherman and
sailed alone, smuggling "horizons of far-away paradises".
Jean-du-Sud has taken me three times from the East Coast to the West
Indies, twice via Beaufort, once via Bermuda; the last time, I did not
come back to the East Coast, but sailed across the Atlantic instead.
I cruised the Cornwall Coast and wintered in Brittany. The
following spring, I sailed to Scandinavia, via the Holland canals.
I was in Sweden when this idea of a single-handed voyage around the
world struck my mind, but at first, I forbade myself to consider it
seriously : the cruising kitty was flat (Sweden is quite expensive) and
I knew that I could not afford it. I had left Sweden in the fall
without knowing where I would spend the following winter; luckily, a
letter caught up with me in Germany, on my way South : a friend I had
met the previous winter offered me a job in his yard that built small
aluminum centerboarders for sailing schools. And it was during a
stopover in this lovely anchorage of the Isles of Chausey, the last
before Saint-Malo and work, that this crazy idea finally appeared
possible : with this yard, I had now the possibility of preparing my
boat for this great challenge of a single-handed circumnavigation via
the Roaring Forties and around Cape Horn.
I worked
on preparing my boat for three years : two years on the boat itself and
one year finding the money to purchase what I could not fabricate
myself. I knew that if I went to play in those waters, I stood an
excellent chance of getting my mast wet and I prepared my boat
accordingly : I reinforced the hull, building an arch of laminated wood
inside to support the coach roof in case the boat was thrown on its top
into green water. I replaced original the mast with a bigger section,
supported by a double-spreader rig with 7 mm. cable instead of the
original single-spreader with ¼ in. (6.4mm) cables. I also
reinforced the two large windows on each side of the coach roof with
Lexan panels bolted over the existing ports.
My My plan was to
sail non-stop and I knew that the old Atomic Four engine would be of
little use after I had burned the 10 gallons of gas in the tank.
So I pulled it out of the boat, and gained valuable storage space.
This was before
the satellite EPIRB and I knew that if my boat sprung a leak and sank, a
life raft would be of little use in the Roaring Forties. So I attempted
to make it virtually unsinkable. I made the four existing
transverse bulkheads watertight, dividing my boat in 5 compartments :
the chain locker and lazarette, providing approximately one cubic meter
(one ton) of flotation at both ends. With the engine gone, it
became possible to isolate the section forward of the cockpit from the
main cabin. Finally, I plugged all the holes in the bulkhead under
the mast, that separated the forecastle from the main cabin and made a
plywood panel that could be bolted quickly in case of emergency (it was
normally left open, to allow passage, but was closed in bad weather or
poor visibility). Fortunately, I never had to test these
watertight bulkheads, but at least I believed that in the event of a
compartment being flooded, my boat would stay afloat long enough to
allow me to make a repair (I carried plenty of underwater epoxy) and
pump it dry. Other than sinking, fire could have forced me to
abandon my boat, so I carried four fire extinguishers, even though I had
no engine and the only fuel I carried was the kerosene I burned in the
lamps and stove. To be even safer, my Zodiac dinghy could be
inflated instantly with a CO2 cylinder.
I also designed my
own self-steering gear, because I did not consider that the vanes I
could find on the market were dependable enough to allow me to make it
around the world without steering. I had read the accounts of the
other single-handers who had sailed this route before me and all of them
had problems with their self-steering gears.
I left Saint-Malo
Sept. 15, 1981 and landed in Gaspé, Québec May 9, 1983, after
sailing 28,200 miles in 282 days. I did not succeed in doing it
non-stop : I was capsized and dismasted in the Pacific Ocean and had to
stop at the Chatham Islands for repairs. The mast broke because I
had overlooked a small detail : I had neglected to increase the section
of the three one-quarter inch bolts that fastened the port lower shroud
chainplates to the hull and these six bolts (three on each) sheared off,
as they were pulled out of the hull. I reached the Chatham Islands
under jury rig and repaired the mast, using a section of the same
extrusion to make a sleeve inside the mast.
But I did succeed
in sailing around the world without steering by hand more than one hour.
I was a bit anxious when I left : I had built and tested a prototype in
aluminum, then had it copied in stainless steel, but I never had time to
test this new one before I left. I was amazed to see it steer a
straight course, as if my boat were on tracks, whether I sailed dead
downwind under spinnaker in light air, or under storm jib in a whole
gale.
In fact, my
self-steering did so well that I saw that I could not keep it for myself
alone and decided to offer it to other sailors through CapeHorn
Marine Products Inc. I had to work for nothing for the first five years,
as I had no money up front, had to re-invest all the income it
generated, but in the end, it turned out to be a smart move : the
CapeHorn Self-Steering now provides me with a comfortable living,
while letting me sail a few months every year, thanks to E-Mail and cell
phone that allow moving the CapeHorn sales office to the boat.
For the circumnavigation, I had a triple-stitched roachless main made
(without battens). I recently replaced it with a full-batten main.
While I appreciated the fact that the sail had no battens (it makes
reefing very easy, even downwind), I did not notice any appreciable
difference in sail balance between a roachless main and a full-batten
one. As soon as the boat acquires weather helm, I reef and it
disappears. The secret with this boat is precisely to reef early.
Very often, I have noticed the speed increase after I had reefed.
 When
I had built the new mast, I had made the masthead fitting so that I
could rig two parallel headstays. While I did not use the twin
headstays in the circumnavigation, I have later added a (Plastimo)
roller-furling jib and the following season, made the experiment of
rigging the furling system on one side, and an other stay next to it, on
which I could hank either a smaller jib, or a larger reacher.
This arrangement worked so well that it became permanent and I consider
that it is an excellent option for offshore sailing. The usual
disadvantage of a double head stay is that if both are equally tight,
there can never be adequate tension on the one used, which sags to
leeward. So I loosen the turnbuckle on the unused stay when I use
the furler, and re-crank it when I use it to sail to windward.
I have two genoas
that can be used with the furler. Instead of a boltrope, I use
small slides designed to fit inside the groove of the furler. If
the season (or the proposed passage) is windy, I will rig the smaller
genoa on the furler and the other one on the stay, using nylon tie-wraps
in place of hanks (I got the idea from a single-handed ocean racer, I do
not remember who). When I replaced the roachless main with a
full-batten, the mainsail cover became too small, so I recycled the old
one by using it to cover the hanked jib when it is furled on the top
lifeline. This way, my two jibs are always ready, one on the
furler and the other one on the stay, protected by a cover. And if
I want to use still another sail, I can hank it above the jib that is
furled on the lifeline.
Having a
double-spreader rig, I kept the removable inner forestay which I had
installed for the circumnavigation, on which I normally hank a foresail
(made of heavy canvas, that can be reefed to storm jib size). I
use the running backstays only when I carry a sail on that stay.
Rigged like this, my boat retains the advantages of the furling jib,
while allowing all other options. It is like wearing suspenders
and a belt at the same time! A nylon reacher and a spinnaker
(symmetrical, in a sock) complete the sail inventory
 I
wanted my dodger to whitstand a knockdown or a heavy sea falling aboard.
The solution I came up with was to replace the stainless steel tubes of
the frame with 2 inch dia. Dacron fire hose with a bicycle inner tube
inside; blown with air, it becomes hard, but when hit by a sea, it
collapses and pops up again. The ends of the tubes are capped with
round PVC inserted into the tube and held with 3 hose clips at each end.
I purchased screw-on tire valves, punched a hole near the end of
the tube and screwed the valve in place. I need to blow it up only once
a season, and after 20 years, it is still airtight.
I rigged
weathercloths in the lifelines and stern pulpit. Instead of
fastening them top and bottom, as most often done, I lashed them to the
middle lifeline. The bottom is kept in place with shock
cord to prevent ripping if a sea is scooped. Most often, I use
only the bottom part, keeping the top section rolled and lashed to the
middle lifeline (on a boat with low freeboard, this looks much better
while providing adequate protection in most circumstances) and unroll
the top part in more severe weather when spray is flying. In my
opinion, this investment in canvas (dodger and weathercloths) improves
creature comfort much more than many other more expensive gadgets.
When cruising
along the coast, I used to buy ice as long as I was in North America
(offshore, I do away with it). After I sailed back to Europe, in
2001, I installed a small 12-volt fridge unit (Frigoboat), as ice is not
sold in Europe. After a year of living aboard, I had
replaced the original pressure alcohol stove with kerosene, which burns
hotter and costs quite a bit less (no need to replace the whole stove,
only the burners are changed, the threads are the same). When I
can not find kerosene, as happens often in the US, I use paint thinner (Varsol
in North Amreica, White Spirit in Europe), which is both cheaper and
cleaner, and burns just as well both in the oil lamps and in the stove
(Like kerosene, Varsol is nothing but petroleum distillate). The
secret to prevent burners from clogging and flaring up is to filter the
fuel each time the tank is filled. I do this without any spill or
mess by using a siphon primed with a bulb, to which I connect a small
in-line gasoline filter.
In the galley
sink, I added a foot operated salt water pump. I also have a show er
head which is fed fresh water by a small electric pump. I recycled
the old engine starter switch and put it on the cabin sole, so I
can wash dishes with salt water and rinse with a minute amount of fresh
(and a few milliamps of power).
Electronics are
kept to a minimum : I have a depth sounder and some years ago, I added a
hand-held GPS. For cruising to Maine and Nova-Scotia, I added a
radar, which I mounted on the mast (only 10 ft above deck), on a
gimballed mount.
Electric power is
generated by a solar panel and a windmill. The solar panel is a 60
watt
Siemens that produces abt. 3 amps. With a length of 42 inches, it
was not easy to find a place for it and I finally found that the best
compromise was to leave it on deck forward of the dodger, but this is
not ideal, as often the boom casts a shadow on it. So I drilled
holes through the edge of its aluminum mounting frame, through which I
passed two lines tied to the handrails on both sides. This way, I
can move the panel to the sunny side without fear of losing it
overboard. I found by experience that this panel produced enough
amps to keep my batteries full, but after I installed a radar, I added
the (Air Marine) wind generator.
 Many
larger cruising boats do not offer the locker space to stow 2 folding
bicycles, but the Alberg 30 does (both in the same cockpit locker,
with the sails). I would never cruise without these, as they make
it much easier to see sights and run errands.
To me, the Alberg
30 is very close to the ideal sea boat : solid enough to sail around
Cape Horn, but small enough to be carried on the road to the cruising
ground of my choice. Most contemporary voyaging boats are much
larger, but after 30 years I came to this conclusion : small boats,
small maintenance problems and small money needed. In any event, a
boat is always overloaded, whatever its size.
Suite:
Re-powering Jean-du-Sud
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