Friday August 5th. The endless 2011 summer.

Written by Jack van Ommen on August 5th, 2011

Compared to last years’s cool and rainy summer from late July till September, this has been a great summer for me. It started when I arrived in Holland in mid March and I brought it with me to Romania. I finished hand sanding the rub rails and the deck margin planks. But it was too sunny and too warm to Cetol them. Later this evening.

“Inzula”, the all allumininum Austrian Tri-Maran, had her 24 meter- 79 feet (from the water) mast stepped a couple hours ago. The below pictures tell the story. The conception and building of this huge multi hull is an unusual story that is slowly unfolding for me, from the conversation with the skipper and crew. This is the first tri I have ever seen where the aka (main hull) is shorter than the amas. The conception is a dream of 48 year old Michael Jansenberger. He attempted to build his design in Venezuela in the mid nineties with his friend Ben, but they ended up building a copy of Joshua Slocums “Spray” and then being caught up in the Colombian drug maffia who slowly tightened the noose or the so called  “Columbian Necktie” around their necks. They spent time in Noriega’s Panama jails.  Jansenberger wrote a book about it “Kolombianische Krawatte”  http://www.buecher.de/shop/buecher/kolumbianische-krawatte/jansenberger-michael/products_products/detail/prod_id/23452632/ Michael gave me a copy and I am going to lay “Goldmund und Narciss” aside for it. Back in Austria he managed to get his dream off the ground with the help of a group of the people in the below pictures. A movie script is being written right now of the amazing Colombia/Venezula/Panama triangle story by an Austrian-Canadian writer.

The overall length of “Inzula” is 17 meters ( 56 feet) and her beam is 9 1/2 meters or just a little under “Fleetwood”s 30 feet length. It is meant tobe put into the charter trade in the Mediterranean and  has 5 separate state rooms each with a king size bed and a twin bed and their own head and shower. Be sure to check the youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZghUfUyyGo               This is no doubt one of the largest sail boats to ever have been built so far away from salt water. I have an enormous respect for Michael and the confidence he managed to maintain among the rest of the crew in the 7 year project. I am hoping to see them raise the sails for the first time, planned for Monday. They will also winter in southern Turkey so I will have more reports to share with you about this incredible effort.

There is a young Romanian man, about 20, who has a mental handicap. He fishes near the marina gate. He is so precious. He speaks good English. He rattles off the names of the North American ice hockey teams, baseball players, etc.  and asks me what I know of their players. Unfortunately I am severely handicapped when it comes to American spectator sports. A young St.Petersburg, Russia, couple asked to sail with me to Istanbul, but that just does not work with all the stuff I have stuffed in the boat. I could use one other set of eyes in the busy tanker corridor to Istanbul but she/he better speak good English and have some sailing experience.

 

 

 

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