Just over 4 years ago, almost to the day (Happy Christmas by the way!), I landed back in the U.K. from Australia having sailed from Cape Town to Fremantle via a medical detour to Durban. I was 11 days late. The fuller account of what went on is in BlogS 100 to 104 written between 26 Nov 2019 and 9 Jan 2020.

Crossing the North Pacific sometime in the spring of last year, I recall one of those Clipper conversations hunkered down sheltering from the elements in the snake-pit, when the conversation turned to the pros and cons of the Clipper 70 design. It was a subject we returned to from time to time. Our “praise” for the design tended to be inversely proportional to the ferocity of the weather and of all the “niggles” we had we tended to be unanimous in our “plea” for a galley sink that could drain on a starboard AND a port tack! Not too much to ask really. Micheil Kool, a Dutchman and an accomplished yachtsman in his own right, summed it up most succinctly. “I’d score the Clipper 70 design 8 out of 10 for ocean racing.” He paused as we ducked for cover as a North Pacific wave slammed into the side of the boat and broke over us. “And I’d score it 2 out of 10 for habitability and creature comforts.” Who am I to argue with Micheil 🙂

A direct scoring comparison between a Clipper 70 and a Hallberg-Rassy 62 is probably a little invidious ……. but I’m going to make it anyway! Using the Micheil Kool scoring system I would rate an HR62 at 9 out of 10 for deep ocean cruising and, significantly, 9 out of 10 for habitability and creature comforts. Regular readers will remember a video tour of a Clipper 70 posted here in Blog 87 way back in October 2019. Here’s the HR62 Stormbird equivalent:

Hallberg-Rassy yachts are synonymous with comfortable, deep water cruising and longer voyages. Harry Hallberg (1914-1997) began his boat building career at the age of 14, constructing boats made of wood. In 1943 he opened his own yard (The Shed) at Kungsviken on the island of Orust in Sweden. By the early 1960s Hallberg was one of the pioneers in serial production of sailboats using glass reinforced plastic hulls with wooden superstructures.

Christoph Rassy (1934-2021 was brought up in Bavaria and became an apprentice in a small boatyard in Southern Germany building wooden boats. In 1960 he moved, empty handed and with a bicycle as his only possession, to Sweden to further his boatbuilding career. In 1965 Rassy founded his own boatyard in The Shed which had recently been vacated by Harry Hallberg. Hallberg-Rassy was formed when Rassy purchased the then Hallberg yard after Harry Hallberg retired in 1972. Since 1989 all Hallberg-Rassy yachts have been designed by the Argentinian engineer and yacht designer German Frers. To date more than 9400 yachts in about 40 different designs have been completed by the yard and the company is still owned by the Rassy family.

Stormbird is a Hallberg Rassy 62. Twenty Five HR62s were built between 1997 and 2011. There will be more to follow about this particular yacht.

I’m pretty much recovered from my spinal fracture and back to taking pain killers as and when my back tells me that would be a sensible move. This is just as well as I fly out to join Stormbird on 28 Dec ahead of the next leg of her circumnavigation; Gran Canaria to Barbados. You can track our progress and read Nick the Skipper’s blog at:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/sv-Stormbird/