Cheglia – unsere Boreal 52

Cheglia outside

Cheglia inside

Cheglia is a Boreal 52, one of the yard’s appr. 80 built aluminium expedition yachts – a true Landrover of the sea.

Accueil

Our version, the Borela 52, was Boat of the Year 2015. Just recently, the new Boreal 47.2 won the title of „Best Cruising Boat“again in January 2021. They must do something right ….

A Boreal is designed for ice and high latitudes, but does excell in warm climate as well with her heavy insulation, good ventilation and unmatched  seaworthiness. That is a phrase often used for many boats. Don’t be fooled. We sail comfortably in conditions most crews on other boats would not like too much anymore ….

Unique design features are the watertight pilot house (why would anybody built a boat without one?), centerboard and shallow central rudder (Bahamas? Shallow rivers, bays? Beach? Ice? Repairs?), the two manually deployed daggerboards next to the rudder (enjoy watching us sail with the Parasailor – absolutely NO rolling in downwind conditions and very low autopilot consumption), huge water and diesel tanks, plus enormous stowage which allow extended trips to remote places. Just imagine a night watch in the sheltered pilot house in shitty weather. Rain? Cold? Thunderstorm  in a Faraday Box? 🙂

We have a generator on board, which drives the watermaker and the washing machine and charges the batteries at anchor. Plus all the kid’s digital toys…

When sailing our watt&sea water hydro generator and or the wind generator produce all the electricity we need, once we sail faster  than 5 – 6 kn.

Safety features: Two redundantly installed autopilots (yes, two course computers, two hydraulic rams, two rudder sensors…) Radar, active radar enhancer (much underrated: it also gives you reliable early warnings of larger craft in your neighborhood) AIS, EPIRB, Iridium Go! and Iridium Sat Phone, liferaft, etc.

We use three sets of electronic charts, on different devices and have backups and paper charts for remote places, where you should not trust your plotter in the first place 🙂

Any boat is a compromise. An expedition boat is no racing machine, getting to places (and back) with no breakage is much more important, than anything else. But we are no slough, either.

Cheglia has 2 constantly rigged furling forsails, the small Trinquette (a selftacking jib) and the overlapping Genua. Main sail and Genua are almost the same size,  ca. 65 sqm each, which makes her an excellent wing on wing sail boat. Watch „Sir Ernest“ sailing in the South Pacific https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMBFIZpLwR4

The rigg is conservative, we need bigger sails if the wind drops. Cheglia has a 130 sqm Gennacker on a detachable endless furler for courses of 60-130‘ and a 170 sqm Parasailor for courses from dead downwind 180‘ up to 120‘ or even a bit higher.

A bowthruster eases handling, in tight marinas and/or crosswinds, particularly, when the centerboard is up.

Our motor range is more than 1500 NM, fed from 3 different tanks.  Anybody interested in the Northwest Passage?

After our pitstop in New Zealand and in Treguier she is technically like new. Generator, and bowthruster have zero, engine has less than 50 hours.