Hi Craig,

This is taken from a thread on Cruising Anarchy about French centerboarders. An American owner recently had a Boreal 44 built, sailed it across the Atlantic and thru the canal, I believe he's bringing it back home to Oregon... Their trip was virtually trouble-free, with the exception of popping a bunch of rivets in the boom, here's what he had to say:

Only problem we had was when seas stayed up and winds went down we popped 6 rivets in boom, 3 in holding blocks for main sheet and 3 in Vang. That was just from boom bouncing strait up and down. While in first 6 days we lost no rivets as we had pressure on main and sail was full. Rivets suck they are not made for up and down motion. Fixed the problem in Carib have not had it again except for one rivet that I did not replace while crossing Caribbean Sea when we got whacked. By the way the E. Carib sucks too many boats when we arrived took us an hour to find an anchoring spot in La Marin.

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=130201&p=4583627

btw, for anyone curious about these sort of boats, this thread - especially the posts of the very experienced owner of RC LOUISE - is a very interesting read...

I believe if I hit the lottery, my second phone call would be to Boreal in France, to get the process started on the build of one of their 44s... (grin)

best regards,

Jon