The Necessary Angel

THE NECESSARY

ANGEL For how many of you does that warmest of sailing fantasies come true - the desire to build the best boat you can and sail off into the sunset?  Michael Davies did it.

by David Weatherston, Canadian Yachting, January 1981

A

rchangel is an outgrowth of Michael Davies' love of sailing.  On the face of it, to say that about a 67-foot schooner that has consumed three years on its planning and building might smack of absurd understatement, but nevertheless, true.

Archangel is a sailboat. Certainly, it is a very complex sailboat, but that complexity exists to ensure that it will be a be a sailboat and not spend its life chugging around under power.

Archangel's owner, Michael Davies, the publisher of the Kingston WhigStandard, has been sailing most of his life, and in the past 20 years has owned, singly or· in partnership, three large sailboats. The first was Tramp Royal, a boat that forced the acquisition of sailing skills, since it was not only fast, but possessed no engine to extricate the unwary from problems. Then there came a C&C Corvette, again owned in partnership. Latterly he had Minstrel, a 43-foot Rosborough ketch.

One of Minstrel's voyages, through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Newfoundland, obviously lies close to Davies' ideal cruise, for Archangel’s accommodation is principally decorated with his moody photos of Minstrel skirting icebergs (not floes, great towering bergs) and pods of whales sounding close to. Davies was much taken with the whales, and the whale motif appears from fireplace tiles to electrical switches. He is rather proud of the brass casting of a whale that serves as a main radio switch.

For all the beauty that Davies encountered on Minstrel, the ketch had its shortcomings and many of these defined the ultimate shape of Archangel. Perhaps outweighing any other consideration, he wanted a boat with uncompromising windward ability; a boat that he would not have to motorsail, or worse yet, power, whenever the wind came ahead. From this came Archangel's schooner rig, which, while not the last word in pointing ability, does very nicely. The schooner plan also allows the vast sail area to be distributed about the boat in manageable proportions.

He wanted a dry boat, which almost automatically means an aft-cockpit layout. Unless you raise a center cockpit such as Minstrel's to unacceptable heights (for the aforementioned windward ability), you are still likely to get spray aboard in a blow. It was also reckoned a prime consideration that watchkeepers should have access to the radar (in which Davies is a great believer) and the plot, without having to nip off below where they're cut off from all else that may be going on in the world. Such a requirement naturally evolved into a pilothouse, which presented the option (taken) of inside steering and gave the cockpit enough shelter to virtually guarantee in writing that you won't get spray on your glasses.

As a final requirement, Davies wanted a boat that would be as independent of shore and shore facilities as possible. That was met with a rig strong enough (in theory) to allow Archangel to carry on, in 50 knots of wind, massive tankage, two sources of AC power, desalinators, a huge freezer and two dinghies.

All the preceding may make Archangel sound like a machine, a kind of pushbutton indulgence for the cruising man who could have everything. It may also do little to dispel the general suspicion that Archangel is not really a sailboat, but one of those floating pleasure domes that surface occasionally in the yachting press or interior decorating magazines, a boat whose true nature is carefully concealed so that the guests may never distress themselves with the knowledge that there is water under the keel.

Certainly, Archangel is comfortable. Everyone should have a shower-bathsauna like Davies'. The air is heated and cooled by two separate systems. The freezer is deep, the clothes will always be clean and there is music wherever you go; headphones hang over every berth.

But this is incidental and it plays no part whatever in an impression of the boat's essential nature. The first reaction is that "this is all go." You don't hear the question, "What will they do with that when they leave harbor?" that sometimes crops up with large yachts. No shag rug, chandeliers or color TV. The interior is clean and spare, with a simple elegance that is all the more startling when you consider what lies behind it. In short, your first impression, which familiarity does nothing to dispel, is of boat, boat, and more boat.

After her launch, Archangel spent the best part of a month in Oakville harbor, working through her sailing and powering trials and being labored over by most of the C&C Custom Division staff. (The work crew often included Davies, who enjoyed being crossexamined about himself and his boat by onlookers who assumed he was a workman.) During this time, she was attended night and day by gawkers, critics and young ladies eager to sign aboard under any conditions.

In and of itself, the interest was not surprising. Oakville harbor often hosts the Custom Division's product, and half the town pops down for a squint if the mast looks big enough to be interesting. Now suddenly two masts - big ones, and the whole town is hanging off the bridge and flooding the park. The general reaction of the non-boating populace was an unsurprising "wowie."

What was surprising was the reaction of sailors, both the locals and the hordes who drove or sailed in from miles around as word got around. Usually, everyone has a word or two about the appearance of any new attraction (there was a hung jury on Archangel - half said "world's biggest Mega," the other half said, "yes, please") and then passes on to speculations on the price. Generally, everyone concedes that the owner and builder know what they are doing.

Archangel, though, drew down a rain of detailed negative comment. Everybody, it seemed, was absolutely convinced that the boat simply would not work. If the hydraulics didn't foul up, they'd be stuck in port for months waiting for parts for the air conditioning. Masts would be hard to come by. The bicycle

would get a flat. If none of the above, two Hood Stoway masts and a heated pilothouse were unsailorly, were flagrant hubris and would anger kraken, who would eat the boat and all who sailed it.

Perhaps this should all be dismissed as sour grapes. But without going too far, we might look at some of the variables involved. The first that comes to mind is that most of the Custom Division's product is race-oriented. As such, it is beyond comment. Racing is exotic, it's expensive and that's the way you do it or not at all.

Cruising is common property. Every- one can, and does, argue about the relative merits of bringing creature comforts aboard. Now, all of a sudden, from the local fraternity is confronted with the apotheosis of Complicated Yachting. So, everybody lines up on the Simple Yachting side of the fence.

This is not to deny the existence of Legitimate Doubt. Maintenance on Archangel will be time consuming and at times a bother. However, all the gimmickry is good quality and well-proven. The single remarkable aspect is the confluence of so much yachty hi-tech. But if sailing continues in its present course of development, even Archangel may seem a bit old-fashioned in not too many years.

So, what, really, is left to object to? Why is there still the vehemence and points stretched to absurdity in search of the final damning argument? Is it perhaps that Archangel’s hailing port is Kingston, and that Davies is a Canadian (worse, a Canadian who tried to use Canadian goods wherever possible on his yacht)? Let the foreign millionaires cavort in their sumptuous yachts, but we men of the North understand Simple and Yachting. Is this part and parcel of the glee with which Canadian sailors greet news of the dismasting of an Evergreen or Amazing Grace? Is this speculation unproductively attempting to patriate a universal phenomenon?

But what of Archangel's performance under sail? One would have to concede, on the basis of a 20-hour sail from Oakville to Kingston, that those qualities are all that might be desired. We left Oakville about 10 at night. Along for the ride, aside from Davies and Norman Van Stone, Archangel's commander, 'were a number of worthies from the C&C shop, variously the worse for wear from the party Davies held to thank all those who had contributed to construction. The wind was straight up until Toronto, when things picked up a bit and allowed about four knots under sail.

This was the sort of situation that - showed up the roller genny and Stoway masts to best advantage. Three of us on watch trotted out and set just under 2,000 square feet of sail in 10 or 15 minutes (and most of that time was taken up with Norman showing us what to do). It is said that cruisers in the Caribbean may spend as much as threequarters of their time under power. This is not as unreasonable a figure as it may at first sound, given that a 60-foot racer with 15 men on deck may spend upwards of an hour just getting sails ready to clear harbor. On Archangel, two can go out on deck, punch some buttons, pull some levers, and be sailing. With the sail set, there was little to do except watch freighters on the radar and have the nav. computer tell us where we were, where we were going and when we'd get there. Everyone had a crack at steering before deciding that the autopilot was much more fun.

About the boat

Archangel is 67ft overall, 52ft on the waterline. Her beam is 18ft 4in., draft is 9ft 3in. and ballast is 35,000 pounds for a total displacement of 100,000 pounds. Check bridge clearances carefully before proceeding - the boat needs 78 ½ feet. Auxiliary power is a 235-hp turbo-charged Volvo diesel that will

drive Archangel to 11 knots through a Sundstrand hydraulic pump and a Hundested controllable pitch prop. Tanks for 650 gallons of fuel and 400 the gallons of water are fitted with trim pumps to compensate for consumption. Water tanks can be topped up from desalinators with a 500-gallon-per-day capacity.

Systems interlock like a Chinese puzzle. Electrical power comes from either a 15-kw generator or a 4-kw generator belted off the main engine and is switched through three complex panels, each about 2ft by 3ft. Heating and air conditioning systems, which are triplicated feed the pilothouse, main saloon and state room separately. Water (40 gallons) is heated by the main engine, generator motor or electricity.

Working sail area is 2,000 sq ft on a Hood Sea Furl and two Stoway masts (each 2100 pounds). That the sails are Hood Eclipse ultraviolet-resistant cloth accounts for their greenish tint. In light air, Archangel can set 6,000 sq ft of sail, including spinnaker and a staysail from each mast. Hydraulics control vangs backstay tension and the four two-speed self-tailing winches in the cockpit are electrically driven. All winches are self·tailing, most are two-speed.

Electronics include Brookes and Gatehouse sailing instruments, radar, SSB and VHF (in saloon and pilothouse), Loran·C and navigation computer.

 Archangel carries a nine-foot dinghy in the covered well between the masts, an inflatable sport boat and two eight-man liferafts.

And that's just hitting the high spots on a boat that took 35 man years to build.