Sail Number:
Type: Cutter
LOA: 50’6″ / 15.54m – LWL: 31’8″ / 9.70m – Beam: 10’8″ / 3.25m – Draft: 5’7” / 1.74m – Build Number: 163 – Designer: Ingenieur Lomakin – Design Number: 1801935 – Original Owner: Monsieur L. Babin, Nantes – Current Owner: – Year Launched: 2.8.1935 – Built By: Chantier de la Liane, Boulogne France (near Calais) – Hull Material: Wood – Gross Displacement: 13.5 tons – Ballast: – Sail Area: 797 ft² / 74 m² – Engine:
Historical:
Rafale was designed by Ingenieur Lomakin and built by Chantier de la Liane in Boulogne France (near Calais) in 1935 for Monsieur L. Babin from Nantes under Lloyds requirements.
Current Owner – From what I know she was kept in the Mediterranean with home port Sanary until the seventies. Also as a charter yacht. Then she stayed in the Golfe de Morbihan up until the eighties when a boatbuilder from England bought her and restored her.
She still spend the years in Cornwall and Bretagne until we sailed her to Germany. She at least crossed the Atlantic once, and participated at the Brest Festival in 2000 as well as the 2001 Americas Cup Jubilee.
What sets her apart from other yachts of her time and size is that she is almost flush decked, but has a full cruising interior. Kept over the years and not ripped out in the seventies to be replaced by plywood-teak-application wonders.
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner: (1935) – Monsieur L. Babin, Nantes