Lili 6.10

Jean-Yves Poirier

The combination of a waterline length of 20′ and a low wetted surface area make Lili 6.10 a very good performer in light airs. For this downwind leg, both daggerboard-style leeboards are raised to decrease drag.

For 30 years, Gilles Montaubin of St. Maixent de Beugné, France, has been designing boats powered solely by sail and oars, all of them sharing much the same spirit: a combination of apparent simplicity and true efficiency. Lili 6.10 is the most recent illustration of this very unassuming man’s outlook on sailboat design.

His views are informed by performance sailing, which for Montaubin originally sprang from his experience sailing with his father, an enthusiastic racing sailor. Far from the inspiration of traditional workboats of the French coastline, his work in this vein has resulted in a large family of contemporary “trekking” sailboats, all winners of various international “Raids”—PETIT JEAN in Portugal, LILI in Scotland, WABI in Finland, and PETITELISA in Sweden, all designs which take their names from the first boats built to them. These designs all have in common a similar hull shape, with a very fine waterline entry and a long flat run. They also share the same plywood-epoxy construction method, using two or three chines reinforced by ’glass-and-epoxy fillets, making the hulls not only light in weight but also easy and relatively cheap to build.

All of Montaubin’s designs have water ballast systems, and all of the hulls achieve lift to windward by using foil-shaped daggerboards or asymmetrical leeboards. Such simplicity carries through to the rig, as well. Montaubin makes his masts freestanding, allowing them to be rotated easily, quickly furling a sail by rolling it up around the mast.

Heavily tested in use, all these features contribute to seaworthiness, whether sailing hard to windward off a rocky shore or rowing in choppy seas. The furling system not only allows fine adjustment to match the ever-changing wind conditions of coastal or inland waters but also allows sail balance to be very finely tuned according to the wind speed. Water ballast increases not only a boat’s stability under sail but her inertia under oars, yet it can be easily drained so that it adds no weight when trailering, an important feature on a boat meant to be easily transported.

Jean-Yves Poirier

The free-standing carbon-fiber masts rotate to furl the sails quickly and easily. This makes light work of stepping and unstepping the masts—sails and all.

“Lili 6.10 marshals all my thoughts about coastal trekking onboard small boats,” Montaubin says. “She has the slender hull of Wabi, with a double chine and a narrow sole. Waterline beam has been kept low enough (5′3″) to make her rowing speed as high as possible, without compromising static stability and sailing stiffness.”

The cuddy cabin is 7′ 3″ long, with headroom of 3′ 3″, making it large enough for two people to find shelter for sleeping or even sitting up. Her simple comfort will easily accommodate a camp-cruise of a few days’ duration. In addition, the boat has two large watertight lockers, one under the companionway for cooking equipment and food storage and another aft for navigational gear. On both sides of the cockpit, additional stowage spaces accommodate smaller items, such as fenders and lines.

Jean-Yves Poirier

The cockpit drains into a well situated in the area of the mizzen mast step, whence the water can be pumped overboard.

For overnighting, the cockpit, which is 7′ 7″ long, can be sheltered by simply hanging a tent or awning. The original owner of the boat planned to sail mostly solo, so the designer decided to place the mizzen in a “more forward than usual” position. This avoids the necessity of having to ship a boomkin, but the mast partner required to support the unstayed mizzen also separates the cockpit into two sections. This partner also supports the mainsheet winch and cleat—honoring another of the owner’s requests. Montaubin is experimenting with an alternative cockpit layout, with a pyramidal standing foot to support the mast without a partner.

At the price of having a short carbon-fiber boomkin to receive the mizzen sheet, one could also step the mizzenmast 2′ farther aft, where it could be supported against the aft bulkhead, which could easily distribute bending loads to the boat’s structure. Such a move would also entail shifting the leeboards aft by 2″. This would completely clear the cockpit space, making the boat very comfortable under sail and also under oars, since two oarsmen could find plenty of room to row together.

As built, the boat’s cockpit sole is almost exactly at the level of the waterline, and around the mizzen mast step a draining well and bilge pump help to clear water out of the cockpit. The aftermost area is too low for the cockpit to be fully self-draining, however—a problem that would easily be solved by raising the sole by 2″ or so.

Jean-Yves Poirier

Though divided by the mizzen mast partner, the cockpit offers plenty of space. The oars, which are her sole auxiliary power, stow neatly just under the side decks.

Oars are very cleverly stored on both sides under covering boards that run from the companionway bulkhead to the transom. There is enough room on each side to store a pair of 10′ oars (two per crew), but longer sweeps (one oar per crew) could also be stored the same way, with handles slightly protruding beyond the
transom.

The water ballast consists of two independent compartments of 14.5 gallons each. The system is straightforward to use: you only need to open the hatch fitted on the cockpit sole and pull out the drain plug in the bottom panel. When enough water has flowed into the compartment so that the boat is on its load waterline, the drain is plugged again. After hauling the boat out on a trailer, pull the plug again to drain the water.

As wind and sea conditions change while you’re afloat, you can reduce ballast by using the bilge pump to pump some of the ballast water overboard. This is a simple and very effective system, but after sailing in salt water the compartments should be flushed with fresh water to keep them sweet, and if you’ve been sailing in fresh water you must take great care to avoid transporting invasive plant species by discharging the water ballast only where it came from and cleaning the tanks thoroughly.

Jean-Yves Poirier

Gilles Montaubin, at the helm, designs light, simple boats with excellent performance under sail, with Raid events in mind. The accommodations are spartan, but adequate for adventuresome sailors.

On the water, Lili 6.10 is very easy to steer and light on the helm. Her low weight, low freeboard, and long waterline help to keep her speed well above the average of her sail-and-oar competitors. Her initial hull stability is high, so the crew can move around on board readily—but take care when handling the anchor at its dedicated trunk in the foredeck, since limited buoyancy in that area is the price paid for having a very fine forefoot. As the boat heels under sail, her upper chine submerges quickly and increases her stiffness. With the head of the sails spilling wind automatically as she heels in squalls, her stability is very high and gives a great feeling of security. In stronger breezes, the sails are easily reefed by rotating the carbon-fiber mast tubes, which are 2 3⁄8″ in diameter for the main and 2 1⁄4″ for the mizzen. Because the center of effort moves forward substantially when the sails are furled this way, the small mizzen sail comes into its own to balance the sail plan rather than provide power.

A pair of asymmetric leeboards, which angle toward the centerline, or “pinch,” by 4 degrees—a technique unknown to conventional sloops—help upwind sailing performance without overtrimming. Instead of leading the sheets more or less to the centerline, this leeboard angle is of primary importance in getting the most from a cat-ketch or cat-yawl. Trimming the traveler to the centerline is the best way to slow this boat down and add leeway.

Closehauled, she can point quite high, but, as with any sailing dinghy, keeping her off the wind a bit is better than pinching. Whether running, reaching, or sailing closehauled, the tiller stays light and responsive. When used alone, the mizzen can even be trimmed by hand to sail backwards in tight corners. When rowing with a single oar, one leeboard can be slightly lowered to keep the hull on track, especially with wind abeam. Her hollow entrance helps to maintain a good turn of speed under oars, even in choppy seas.

Lili 6.10 is an able boat for two to cruise in complete independence for a few days in a lifestyle as simple and inexpensive as the boat is to build and use, and she can easily be towed to the next shore for the next exploration. This very homogenous sail-and-oar trekker opens new recreation grounds to the “sailing in the wild” lover who sleeps in the minds of all of us.

Gilles Montaubin, Chantier Mer, “La Robinerie.”

Gilles Montaubin

Plywood hull construction is a hallmark of Gilles Montaubin’s style. The simplicity and minimalism of the hull are mirrored in her rig, which has a minimum of fittings. The inexpensive nature of the boat, however, doesn’t imply a lack of sophistication or performance: Montaubin’s designs have placed first in a number of Raid-style races in Europe. Leeboards set up like daggerboards and vertical leech battens in the mainsail to facilitate furling by rolling the sail up in the mast are among the pragmatic but effective elements of his design philosophy.