Folkboat

Good folks

It's not hard to spot a Folkboat. Any sailor worth his or her salt can virtually be assured that they've sailed one or known someone who's owned one.

The distinctive lines, the upswept bow, reverse transom and the clinker-style strakes all point to this endearing Nordic design.

It's a design that is old, but somehow timeless.

I spotted one at last year's Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show and was intrigued that this perennial design was once again in production (I was later to find out that it had never ceased).

I stopped to chat to Euan MacDonald from Australiawide Boat Sales who imports them and discovered that the Folkboat, now built in fibreglass, still conforms to the original one-design rules and is still on sale all around the world.

We got to talking and I found that Euan had sailed Folkboats with his dad in his native Scotland and, as with most Folkboat sailors, he couldn't get them out of his system.

Consequently, I agreed to a sail with him next time I was in Brisbane. So on a sunny, though not too windy day we headed out on the beautifully presented example you see here.

A BRIEF HISTORY
If you reckon they've been around a while, you're right (Hey dad, didn't your uncle Bill have one of these?). The Folkboat was originally penned from a competition held in Sweden in 1941 (yes, during WWII).

The brief was pretty simple: an affordable one-design class equally suited for weekend cruising and for level match racing against like-minded sailors from other Scandinavian countries.

The war was making materials scarce so the boat had to be constructed from local materials and, as lead was almost unobtainable, it had to have a cast-iron keel. But above all it had to be cheap.

The popular classes of the time were the Dragon, 5-metre and 6-metre, among others, but these were considered too expensive for mass appeal.

Nobody won the design competition, but through a combination of the designs of the chaps who came equal second, and Tord Sunden an engineering draughtsman in a Gothenburg shipyard, the design of the Folkboat was penned. Sunden was employed by one of the judges, Sven Salen, who was a notable 6-metre sailor of the time.

The prototype boat was completed in the Christmas of 1941, but because the Goteborg Harbour was iced up for the winter, it wasn't launched for its maiden sail until April 1942.

Salen then commissioned 61 Folkboats with builders in Sweden which he planned to sell at cost to kickstart the class. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Around the mid 1970s Folkboats started to appear in fibreglass and although they were “overbuilt and awkward to produce” the design integrity of the original class rules was maintained so that the 'glass boats offered exactly the same performance as the old wooden boats. This gave the Folkboats a new lease of life as level one-design racing could be guaranteed.

EPIC VOYAGES
Stories abound about ocean voyages in Folkboats. There's Robert Wagner who decided to take his Folkboat on a re-creation of Joshua Slocum's voyage through the Magellan Strait between Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego.

Wagner had to deal with a leaking boat, adverse currents and winds before finally coming to grief on a lee shore in the Strait.

Then there was a Californian, William Amberg, who sailed his Folkboat from Redondo Beach to Hilo, Hawaii - a journey of 2200 miles in 20 days which set a Folkboat record.

Or the famous Colonel Herbert George Hasler, DSO, OBE, aka ‘Blondie' Hasler, who did no fewer than four single-handed Atlantic crossings in his modified Folkboat called Jester. He re-rigged Jester with a junk rig and developed what was the forerunner to modern wind-vane self-steering.

The first of these crossings was in the original OSTAR (the Observer Singlehanded TransAtlantic Race) which had five entries including Sir Francis Chichester in Gypsy Moth III and Valentine Howells from Wales in Another Folkboat. Chichester bet Hasler half a crown that his 39-footer would beat Hasler's Folkboat and won the bet in 40 days to Hasler's 48. The year was 1959.

But none of these audacious feats compares to the Australian grandmother Ann Gash who sailed her Folkboat Ilmo from Australia to England and back so she could attend a music class with the British Guild of Bamboo Pipers. It was 1975 and Ms Gash had precious little ocean experience, but her tenacity and the sea-keeping ability of Ilmo the Folkboat got her there (albeit with some help from a freighter from West Africa to London) and all the way back to Sydney again in December 1977.

Ironically, after this epic journey Ilmo was to meet her fate in Broken Bay in February, 1979. Ann Gash stepped off and in tears: "I picked my way across the rocks thinking of the times this had almost happened...in Ghana, in the English Channel. Now Ilmo was aground being destroyed and there was nothing I could do. Behind me I heard a crack, but I couldn't look…twenty minutes later, Ilmo was gone."

Ann Gash wrote a book about her adventures on Ilmo called A Star to Steer Her By which is a great read for any Folkboat enthusiast.

A TOUCH OF MODERNITY
Of course the modern Folkboats tend to be a little more comfortable than the old wooden boats and a weekend away with family is certainly not out of the question.

Our test boat was fitted with some non-standard items like a Porta-Potti loo and a roller furling headsail, but there are plenty of standard features that make these boats comfortable and user-friendly.

The first thing to notice is that the cockpit is both comfortable and deep. The skipper gets a nifty teak helm seat that slides in under the transom and the crew have teak-topped seats which have big storage lockers under.

Down below there's a cosy forepeak and two single berths the starboard of which is longer for the over-six-footers and the port more suited to shorter crew.

There's a small galley unit to port with a single-burner metho stove and with three drawers below for your cutlery and utensils. Behind the stove is a largish locker for food.

Lining the cabin are neat shelves with grey plexiglass doors and brass fittings, there's also a magazine shelf and little bar with cups, glasses and plates, all ex-factory. All the fittings including the window frames are stainless steel.

Back up on deck I noted that although the hull is hand-laid fibreglass, and the deck and superstructure balsa sandwich, the mast is still wood and is keep-stepped.
All the control lines lead aft so the setup is great for short-handed sailing. The traveller sports a ball-bearing car and although it resides between the skipper and the crew it can be lowered down to the cockpit sole to keep it out of the way when not in use.

The stainless steel winches have unique under-deck handles which are permanently mounted so they'll never fall over the side. There are rubber straps fitted to the handles so they can be used to windward.

The standard boat does not come with any lifelines nor a pushpit or pulpit which can be a bit hard to get used to but according to Euan MacDonald they can be retro-fitted.

The 6hp four-stroke outboard sits on a retractable mounting bracket on the transom with the fuel tank under the transom.

STIFF AND SEAWORTHY
One of the big assets of the Folkboat is its stiffness. With an overall displacement of 1960kg and a ballast of 1040kg, this baby is not going to fall over in a hurry. Euan reckons they really come into their own over about 20kts of true breeze. In race trim they don't have reefing lines and Euan told us that he's had the boat out in better than 30kts with full rig.

Unfortunately on our day out we got nowhere near this, but the Folkboat proved a good sailboat in the light conditions as well as the heavy.

Owing to its remarkably flexible wooden mast, you can tweak the rig to suit the conditions.

According to Euan, you can adjust the rig from the mast so that it falls away in heavier conditions by loosening the diamond and the boat can be sailed with virtually no backstay.

Downhill you can run a spinnaker or genneker, or simply pole out the headsail. The pole can be adjusted on the mast to ease it to leeward so the boat can almost reach with a poled-out headie. Lots of fun and annoying to other competitors in a race!

As with most one-design boats, there are plenty of tricks to getting them going faster than the opposition; and while they are simple to sail on one hand, they can be a great challenge to get the last bit of performance out of them on the other.

As has been proven by the many ocean voyages undertaken by Forlkboats, they are one of the most seaworthy small yachts on the market and will certainly get you there - and back - in a seaway or a blow.

Add to this the fact that they are trailerable - about 2500kg on a steel trailer - and you have one very versatile and cost-effective package starting at around $85,000.

Now where can you get a new seaworthy yacht for that price today?

LOWS