"Vellamo": Youth on tour with self-built catamaran

The youngest was six years old, the oldest 70. More than 400 people built the catamaran. In 20,374 working hours, the initiators counted, the helpers mixed epoxy, laid out glass mats, filled, sanded, painted, drilled and assembled. Each of them became part of an ever-growing team. The helpers came out of the Ocean Youth Sailing Project (OYS) shipyard with dust in their hair - and with experience in laminating. And they also gave their commitment as credit: repayment in routes.

The idea is that their bicep loans enable them to sail at reduced rates for young people; self-build and sailing in instalments, a new, collective system as opposed to the usual individual self-build. It was mainly children and young people who gave such hand-for-koje loans with a time component; entire school classes replaced languages and maths with spatulas and mats. The volunteers spent three and a half years building the ocean-going yacht from the keel up. And what a yacht it is: 13.5 metres long, 7.5 metres wide, ten berths are fitted into the hulls of the large catamaran. The mast carries 100 square metres of sail and is 17.5 metres high. That's enough sail for speed.

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But Damian Ruppen and Nicola Möckli don't want to take any risks with the newly launched cat in 2019. The cat "Vellamo" has never travelled in so much wind as on the test run. The gusts rattled out of the Bay of Constance on Lake Constance at 5 to 7 Beaufort. Just past the entrance to Bottighofen harbour, the wind is already gripping the steeply rising hulls. The two board members of the operating association first unfurl the genoa up to the first reef mark. The smaller jib would be the better sail on this day. It is on board, but as a rain front is threatening, the two do not want to waste time changing it. "After all, it's a cruising boat, not a racing yacht," says Ruppen, putting the brakes on potentially overly high expectations of sailing performance.

The cat "Vellamo" picks up speed like a small keelboat, but now it's time to head into the wind again to hoist the mainsail. Now one of them has to operate the engines, but who? "Do you want to?" - "Yes, okay." The two of them are actually equal skippers, like all OYS board members.

Ocean Youth Sailing Project association to build its own ocean-going catamaran as its first major endeavour

Nicola Möckli pushes the two handles of the fist-sized control unit for the electric motors forwards until the instruments in the cabin bulkhead display an output of 2000 kilowatts. A fifth of the maximum value is enough to keep the catamaran in the gusty wind.

They also set the mainsail with a reef. With the sails furled, they lower the fixed-hull dinghy into the water on the davits. These beams are also built according to the construction principle of the entire catamaran, "Duflex" sandwich panels, balsa brainwood, covered with fibreglass and epoxy. The surfaces look like a GRP product made from a CNC-milled negative mould, with a perfect finish. The eyes of the two captains are now also shining. Their catamaran has picked up speed again and is cutting through the toxic waves of Lake Constance at a speed of ten, sometimes twelve knots. The stern sea seems to shoot out of the hull ends as if from fire hoses.

Möckli and Ruppen take turns at the wheel. Although there is a small amount of play on the cables of the two wheels, they provide the feedback desired by the builders, so course changes are quite direct for a cat of this size. This is not only important for the skippers, but also for future junior helmsmen. Most of the OYS board members already knew each other from the Steckborn Youth Sailing Club when they decided to launch this ambitious project. They had strongly influenced the young club on Untersee and significantly expanded its youth sailing weeks. The fleet comprised 25 dinghies from Opti to 29er skiffs and three motorboats when the former team handed over to younger members in 2015 and 2016.

But there was still momentum left. In order to work together effectively as a group with this enthusiasm, they founded the Ocean Youth Sailing Project organisation in the same year, which was ultimately to build their own new ocean-going cat as their first major achievement. "It helped us a lot that we are a non-profit organisation," says Ruppen, explaining that the organisational form was a good choice. At the time, the establishment of a limited company, a public limited company or a foundation had also been under discussion.

Plans from designer Jeff Schionning from Australia are acquired

"I then went to my father and told him, 'You, I need 1,000 francs. Don't ask me what for, but I just have to be able to say that I have the first sponsor," he says, describing the initialising asset. Möckli also approached his parents and friends. "They simply knew that what we were doing was sound and that we would go through with it, even if it took a little longer."

Within just a few months, 120,000 Swiss francs were raised for the catamaran project. The basic idea: young people build an ocean-going yacht and sail it at very favourable conditions.

With the initial capital, the club purchased the plans from designer Jeff Schionning from Australia. The kit was still missing. His prefabricated parts were considerably more expensive, but the team did not want a lengthy shipyard operation; it was more important to them that hulls could be recognised within a few weeks. A 1:10 scale model was also created. "We cut it in Zurich in the shared flat of our club colleague Lukas Ruppen - my brother - from Depon." He was also an early supporter of the purchase of a cutting plotter. This meant that the model parts were produced particularly quickly and accurately, and the device later cut dozens of sponsor stickers, which now cover a large part of both hulls. The machine also produced templates for T-shirt printing. Advertising, sponsoring and merchandising were part of the project right from the start, a practice with which they have already achieved some success with youth sailing in Steckborn.

Construction of the "Vellamo" catamaran on Lake Constance

The finished model was taken to the boot trade fair in Düsseldorf in 2016. The designer Jeff Schionning had already established contact with the boat building materials dealer von der Linden. Its sub-company VDL Composites produced the sandwich panels for the boat building kit. "We were allowed to exhibit our model on their stand," says Möckli, "which was fantastic. We had heard some criticism that we were perhaps only launching the project in order to have a boat to sail ourselves afterwards. But that's the good thing about boot: you have several exhibitors and can make contacts." Jos Vaes from the management of Von der Linden proved to be a door opener, "He took us to the stands and went directly to the respective managing director. And then he introduced us and said: 'Look, these two guys, they have a great project. We support them and please support them too'."

Finally, a 100-day crowdfunding campaign made it possible to raise the remaining 30,000 francs for the kit. 236 "boosters" donated 20 francs or more in return for a thank-you letter with "Schöggli", sweet pastries from the oven of chairman and former confectioner Jürg Hochstrasser, 64, the only person on the board who was older than 30 at the start of the project. Participation in the launch party, including a meal, cost 50 francs. Donors who donated 100 francs also received a T-shirt or a taster lesson on the sailing boat. Damage to the boat was repaired for 750 francs, while 1,000 francs went towards an underwater paint job. The amount was completed on one of the last days of the campaign, and the commitments made were fulfilled in return.

The construction phase starts a few weeks after the crowdfunding. "We initially tried to find a building site in Basel so that we wouldn't have to transport the finished cat on the road. Fortunately, we decided against it, as it would have been far too much driving," says Damian Ruppen. After all, they can use a hall in Bottighofen on Lake Constance right next to the marina - it also brings in walk-in customers with a maritime background. They set up their construction tent on a riding meadow next door, on free loan from the Fosssailing project in Muttenz, where two identical ten-metre cats were built between 2000 and 2002. The Bottighofen public transport stop is only a few minutes' walk away, a stroke of luck. "This made it easy for children and young people in particular to reach us by train. And also the refugees, who helped with the construction in collaboration with the Peregrina Foundation and some of whom we have since been able to place in permanent jobs."

They don't do everything on their own, but the majority

A Swabian toolmaker is donating manual machines, a manufacturer is donating its sandpaper and Von der Linden is providing its gluing press free of charge. "The Duflex panels are 2.40 by 1.20 metres. The components are already CNC-cut and are only held in place by narrow bars," says Möckli, explaining the time-saving procedure with the construction kit. They join the larger parts together in the gluing press, with one joint completed every ten minutes, "that went chakka, chakka, chakka!" he says, emphasising the speed of the work. The balsa core makes the workpieces stiff and light. In a photo from the construction period, four children carry the longest hull wall at 13.60 metres.

The kit is similar to a model house, but on a scale of 1:1. "It went quickly, plus we had already glued everything together once with the Depon model and knew which part went where." The boat builders were delighted when Swiss public television presented the project in a four-minute programme.

They don't do everything on their own: 20 trainee carpenters laminate the fore beam, a complicated carbon construction between the two bows that has to absorb enormous forces from the jib and gennaker. "They must have taken us two months' worth of work with a normal crew," says Damian Ruppen. And there are weeks when it becomes clear that the originally planned budget of 300,000 francs is too tight. And that the boat would not be launched within the planned two and a half years.

"Keep it simple and stupid" often fades into the background

The interior work was probably largely responsible for the extra hours," summarises Ruppen. "I think it was because we were working with untrained people," Möckli replies. "Probably both." Once again it becomes clear: there was and is no boss, the team works in a grassroots democratic manner with various meetings for decisions that are sometimes difficult to make. For example, they spent a long time debating what amounts should be set for the sponsored classes. The donors with the small sums want to be honoured, those with the large amounts want to be recognised in a special way.

Many of the detailed solutions are not precisely described in the plan and are now eating up time and money. Damian Ruppen describes the dilemma in the shipyard: "In the beginning we said, keep it simple and stupid. We still tried to do that later, but then this and that came up, and at some point you say: Now we're building and we want the ship to last 30 years. Then you'd better do it right."

In their spare time, the initiators complete the Yachtmaster Offshore with a circumnavigation of England, give sailing theory lessons on site for the latest 62 offshore aspirants and beat the advertising drum at least as vigorously as the epoxy in the cups. But something gets in the way for site manager Lukas Ruppen. The shipyard is not tearing up a relationship, quite the opposite: it is creating one. Franziska Straden, also the initiator, and he have a baby together. A film from the construction period shows a baby bouncer, rocked by a cordless screwdriver fixed with adhesive tape.

Main initiator eventually becomes professionally involved

"Finn Skipp was the first child ever for all of us. Lukas built the rocker and we looked after the baby together. The little one now has 50 uncles and aunts," says Möckli, explaining the new situation. Lukas Ruppen, until then a restorer of historic aircraft and the main initiator of the extensive merchandising, now devotes himself solely to the cat. "We then gave him a job, otherwise it would no longer have been possible," says his brother, summarising the situation at the time. "He already had the maintenance of the club boats under control in Steckborn and is also our Daniel Gyro Gearloose for this project. He is incredibly versatile technically."

The cruising cat, which displaces just under seven tonnes, sails back to Bottighofen harbour at a consistently high speed. The sails of the "Vellamo" are raised with ease thanks to the precise fitting arrangement and high-quality ball bearings. In the harbour, manoeuvring is precise as only the two engines are used, with the rudder blades remaining in their central position. Although - or perhaps because - it took a year longer to build, the yacht has become a piece of jewellery thanks to various details. The two are delighted with the recently installed watermaker, the self-built lightweight galley and the cleverly placed air heater outlets, which allow the shower cabins to function as oilskin drying rooms. On the other hand, there are deliberately no electric winches and USB sockets on the berths.

The concept with "Vellamo" works

For Nicola Möckli and Damian Ruppen, working with the 400 young people was not always a walk in the park. But they never tired of explaining the work processes to volunteers on site, handing out dust masks and warning them that epoxy splashes can suddenly turn their favourite clothes into rags. Having previously worked as a meteorologist and controller, they both switched to teaching during the construction period. If they manage to make an impression on their pupils in their new job, they can learn what perseverance can achieve.

The cat is now travelling in the Mediterranean, and will be in Sardinia in the 2024 season. And the concept is working: "Explorer & Lifestyler" and training cruises are on offer, as well as a kite week and external sailing camps. In between and at the end of the season, the volunteers from the OYS are once again on hand to carefully prepare "Vellamo" for hibernation.

Technical data of the Schionning "Vellamo" catalytic converter

• Hull length: 13.60 m
• Width: 7.40 m
• Draught: 0.50 m
• Mast height: 17.50 m
• Displacement: 6.8 tonnes
• Motor: 2x 10 kW Oceanvolt 48 V
• Sail area downwind: 104 m²
• more information: www.oceanyouthsailing.com

The article first appeared in YACHT 4/2020 and has been updated for the online version.