François Vivier designed the handsome pocket cruiser Pen-Hir for his own use. He cruises the boat for up to two weeks at a time, often singlehanded, along the Brittany coast.
Kathy Mansfield
Pen-Hir is a very pretty little 24′ 7″ pocket cruiser designed by naval architect Vivier Vivier. Some of my favorite moments at the big French traditional boat festivals have been watching her sail purposefully through strong tides and sometimes strong winds in the company of schooners, pilot cutters, and fishing boats. There’s always a large sail-and-oar contingent too, numbered in the hundreds, and there we are among friends, because Vivier has designed a large proportion of them, as well as quite a few of the larger boats. There are sleek double-enders, plumb bows and transoms, raid boats like his sprightly Stir Ven design, and a proliferation of rigs from gaff and lug to gunter and marconi.
Vivier spent four years considering the design for a small, fast, good-looking cabin sailboat for himself that he could cruise for two weeks in the summer along the coast of Brittany, often singlehanded or in shallow waters. He wanted to keep it simple, without the need or expense of winches and windlasses, little to go wrong. His inspirations were the small boats of Alden and Crowninshield, the purity of Herreshoff, but updated for modern use with more beam and a larger cabin. He also added to the mix the traditional look of workboats from western Brittany that were sailing at the same time in the early 20th century, with a plumb stem and short counter, but adding the lower freeboard and elegant sheer of classic yachts.
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Any chance someone can share the paint used on the topsides? Including the paint manufacturer, paint name and paint code to assure duplicating that beautiful color? Thank you.