In the golden late autumn, even the edge of the mudflats has a particularly golden glow. Which looks quite nice, but doesn't change the fact that the edge is quite real, lies at right angles to the course and the boat is racing squarely towards it at ten knots under gennaker. So a jibe is needed, and fast. Jibes work best here on board in sports boat style, snappy and rough. Except that this "sports boat" is around ten metres long. It rushes, buzzes and rumbles, the smooth wake kinks sharply. Owner Matthias Bröker built this boat from flat laminate himself and remains relaxed: "The rig is so far aft and so wide that it's best to simply leave out the backstays in the jibe." Sounds simplistic, but it works. And the - pleasantly tame - squarehead sail is also best thrown to the other side with a jerk in dinghy style. The main thing is to keep going quickly, the next tack is sure to come.
By the way, "gossip waves" are talking, rare and dangerous water creatures that every Captain Bluebear fan knows. Bröker is one.
First impression: lots of strings
Two hours earlier: The golden October light shines on the inner harbour basin of the Weser Yacht Club in Bremerhaven as we board "Keena", the much admired new offshore boat made of flat laminate. First impression: "Cork!" The second: "Small cockpit and quite a lot of strings." Firstly, this is because the deck and cockpit surfaces are sprinkled with eye-catching cork granulate, which makes the otherwise grey-finished boat look tidy and pretty. And secondly, Bröker has designed the strong riding beam structure in the cockpit so far forward that the traveller adjacent to the side decks just aft of the tiller looks like a garden fence and the area up to the stern railing merely looks like a walk-on apron sprinkled with cork. A look that has been familiar since the early Class 40 generations, but that is not the point here.
The derivative of a Dehler 30od
Here is a derivative of a Dehler 30od, designed and only minimally modified by Bröker himself, which was also constructed by the design office in Bremerhaven and intensively supervised by Bröker's team. This boat, on the other hand, was customised for his wife and himself, freed from all market constraints. Just for the sake of it.
There are no scaled lines here. Everything is adapted exactly to our body measurements, we're just long lads."
This is obviously true, because the first thing you notice below deck are the higher keel structures than on the GRP boat. These leave deeper "compartments" into which you can dangle your legs while sitting on the bunks at the front. Aft of this, in the "primary area" under the companionway, a cork panel, barely two steps square, as a wet-resistant dance area. No floorboards anywhere.
Comfort like camping
Compared to the Dehler, the galley on the port side is larger and has two burners, extended by a beautifully glued formica panel. Opposite: a wicket door concealing a washbasin and, during regattas, a dry loo that works with a kind of cat litter. Today, however, there are only two diesel canisters in the room, to which the Schapp owes its internal nickname "petrol depot". And that's it for the interior, which Bröker has mirrored (port has become starboard). Almost.
A lone carbon fibre tube protrudes through the saloon. In it: the tackline for the gennaker. A very lightweight solution, but: "There wouldn't even be a tube on a TP 52."
Speaking of the TP 52: the Bremerhaven-based company is big business with the major professional racers. They supply half the scene with designs and know all the tricks of the show business. On "Keena" you can tell by the language and the battery. It is not yet perfectly wired, a little jerky and not connected in a safety-compliant manner. But the surveyor didn't notice. "He should actually have claimed it." Words with a professional routine.
Bröker has turned the engine 180 degrees so that the saildrive is hidden just behind the keel to optimise the flow. The shaft folding mechanism à la Dehler 30 is therefore no longer required.
We take the few seconds that a Saildrive adds to the measurement with us."
A racer on deck too
On deck: lots of constrictor stoppers, even more thimbles, a few blocks and a cork playground for the foresailor, which probably offers even less surface area than the cork counterpart below deck. The yacht designer has plotted 100 fittings on deck.
Half a step aft of the cork, the swivelling radius of the tiller begins, under which lives a pretty frame made of stainless steel tubing. Inside: clamps for travellers and other useful controls for active sailors.
Otherwise absent: halyard stoppers and rails. However, this will change when the track for the self-tacking jib is fitted. Present: lots of DynaOne, spliced for 3-D hole points, for example. Two barberhauler-like loops that control a thimble - done.
The traveller-mainsheet complex is distinctive, rare, pretty and symmetrical at the same time: aft of the riding beam structure, the ends of the sheet are each guided into the outermost stern ends of the "cork skirt" and from there again diagonally under the traveller to the central mainsail control box below the tiller, one diagonal end fitted with a folding runner - the fine adjustment of the mainsheet.
In principle, we are looking at a stern sheet that perfectly accommodates a relatively short boom. In addition, there is no part above the foot block to get in the way when gybing.
The carbon rig with bare pole stays and only one strongly swept pair of spreaders comes directly from the half-sister Dehler 30.
"Keena" under sail
The sea lock releases us into the Ochsenhals, a kind of Weser delta. Here there are river edges, a roadstead, buoys, groynes and ferries. And occasionally the aforementioned "gossip sills". But Bröker says he has armed his ship against them.
Compared to its series sister, "Keena" is designed to be a little more all-round by just a few centimetres and has been moved away from a reach-oriented design corner. Among other things, the twin rudders have been removed.
In "Keena's" area, a ship must be able to cross well. "We often have wind-versus-current constellations here when we cross with the tide from the rivers. It was windy in the Outer Elbe when we came back from the 'Silverrudder'. There were a lot of gossip waves."
Single instead of double rudders also means less mechanics, less weight, fewer labour hours and lower costs."
On the wind, the centre rudder gives an idea of its efficiency: Low and far forward, pleasant, suggesting safety. The "small", non-overlapping sails are huge. No wonder, when the J-measurement (mast-jib fitting), on which their size depends, measures around half the length of the ship and the foredeck is otherwise a pure void. There are three Amwind headsails on board, all on fine Dyneema staysails: the current working and self-tacking jib, a slightly larger genoa and the much smaller "stay jib", for which only the sail itself is available as a "stay". Its luff, consisting of a fat aramid rope plus a reduced Dyneema halyard plus plenty of winch power, is sufficient for a wobble-free sail with acceptable sag in windy conditions.
The working jib is currently sufficient. And according to Bröker, it is actually sufficient even in light winds, because the light rig is efficient, trimmable and provides plenty of pressure. This is probably also due to the fact that a lot of lame and heavy things are missing: furling system, single-line reefing - there is nothing like that on board. The designer is even considering taking the "Genoa" out of the measurement again and earning rating seconds for it. And because the high-tech sails are so easy to trim, they work "digitally", meaning they are either all there or all gone. And when they are reefed, they are horizontal. There is no furling or winding, it would not suit the boat.
Agile and snappy
Like her half-sisters, "Keena" is quite a powerhouse. Agile and quick to accelerate, the supposedly narrow ergonomics are a blessing, because all of the cables are within easy reach. Incidentally, "Keena" displaces just as much as her half-sisters. And looks great. The grey high-gloss finish conceals the Chinese, which are there but rounded and therefore not too dominant.
The beautiful appearance is particularly pleasing to builder Friedrich Deimann, who follows us in person with leftovers from his shipyard. As we know, his company Greenboats in Bremen-Hemelingen is on its way from being an exclusive manufacturer of flax boats to becoming a major player in Europe. Greenboats uses a special process to laminate sandwich panels made of industrial-style flax laminate. And you can build anything from them. Even articulated motorboats. The enterprising master boat builder was able to access panels from an industrial order and built the "leftover boat" from them within three weeks. A lesson learnt is a lesson learned.
There are many such plates in "Keena". The deck is almost complete, the hull is partly sailing plate construction.
Like the boat, the sails are also completely sustainable. Made from Elvstöm's new "Epex" laminate made from recycled polyester, they are "pretty cardboard" (Bröker), but their profile retention and trimmability ensure that the "digital" thing works.
The rig geometry reveals another trick: the huge angle between the mast tip and the bowsprit tip means that the gennaker is virtually inclined skywards and produces a powerful upward component (some boats with similar rigs therefore increase the mast drop on the beam). This ensures a fast and stable ride while the body is flushed with adrenalin. Of course, "you can simply hold a boat better with two oars", but it works here too, it just requires concentration.
Shake test due to sunshot
However, this is lost once and "Keena" slips with a lot of noise shortly before a jibe, we subject her to a 70-degree shake stress test (the first ever, by the way). Pleasantly - if you can even speak of "pleasantly" in such a situation - how quickly the boat can be pulled out of the awkward situation again. The relatively small mainsail and the remaining speed probably help and confirm the old rule of "in fast, out fast". Don't take too long.
The oxneck is mean to us because it shrinks in relative terms as soon as the gennaker is up. When "Keena" levels out at the sweet spot, there's no stopping her. Wadden edges, groyne buoys and reed steamers, on the other hand, won't budge, dictating wild back-and-forth jags. But that's the way it is with modern "trunk boats". Bröker's former "Pylaya" (well known in the area and among prize distributors) was modelled on the IMS of the time. And older and heavier boats can simply sway linearly along the fairway with their spinnakers. Their crews may then have an easier time. But also demonstrably much less fun and much less to do.
Quickly back to the outer harbour. Too late, the gate is closed. Bröker confirms the old Bremerhaven lock rule: "It's like a pub here - half in, full out." So we have a coffee, circle round and chat.
Separating the resin and fibres again during recycling costs more energy than is consumed in the production of the laminate."
Could flat laminate be separated again and recycled? "That's not worth it. It would cost much more energy than it took to produce it. We're almost only talking about plants that grow on their own. And the fact that flat fibres are impregnated and not just enclosed. Removing the resin would be very time-consuming."
This echoes a little of the minute differences in philosophy when it comes to sustainability that drive shipyards: Jeanneau, for example, meticulously develops processes that allow the energy once put into their boats (such as that needed to produce glass fibres) to be taken out again through recycling. Greenboats, on the other hand, wants to use less energy in its products from the outset.
The new Sun Fast 30 OD from Jeanneau is also on the agenda. On the one hand because it is the direct counterpart to Bröker's boats. But also because it is the first production boat ever to be laminated from a resin/thermoplastic called Elium and the resin-fibre matrix can be separated again at the end of the boat's life.
Interesting details
Shipyard manager Friedrich Deimann drops by the berth. Apart from the fact that he is naturally thrilled to have seen his baby live in action, he is not yet familiar with some of the new details that Bröker has designed himself in the meantime. The ones that Deimann has fabricated himself, on the other hand, he knows inside out. For example, that they crumbled cork in Bremen-Hemelingen in a highly analogue way using a coffee machine and spread it on resin on deck like on a crumble cake. This resulted in different shades of the panels, but that's just the way it is with natural products.
We park next to an old production half-tonner, a C&C 30 from the 1970s, a Silverrudder classmate. A beautiful boat, actually. It seems that what people used to know as a "half-tonner" represents a boat size that is becoming increasingly interesting for shipyards again, see also the new First 30.
The expert considers the fact that the "new half-tonne trucks" now look so beefy and offshore and resemble the Imocas from the Vendée Globe to be an "irreversible development", not a fleeting fashion. And that would include the scowbug. So back to the future. Here to stay. The new generation of half-tonne boats is growing and thriving: Dehler 30 OD, Sun Fast 30 OD, First 30, Pogo 30 or even the Figaro 3 with foils and comparatively moderate individual designs such as the "Keena".
Oh, the name. It's not Berlin, but Gaelic, an Irish legendary figure called "the undaunted". And she came fifth in her class last year in the world's largest single-handed race, the Silverrudder around Funen, by the way, including two Dehler 30s before that, but that stays in the family.
This is flax fibre
The "Keena" was built at Greenboats in Bremen-Hemelingen. Founded in 2013 by Friedrich Deimann, the company combines modern production methods with natural materials. In addition to various cores and bio-based epoxy resin, flax is also used. The stiff and resilient fibre has similar strength values to glass and an 80 per cent better eco-balance.
Technical data "Keena"
- Hull length 9,14 m
- Total length 10,23 m
- Waterline length 8,70 m
- Width 3,15 m
- Draught 2,05 m
- Weight 3,05 t
- Ballast/proportion 1,20 t/40 %
- Mainsail 31,00 m²
- Genoa 31,00 m²
- Gennaker 77,00 m²
