Seen at Maine Yacht Services in Portland while fixing stuff on my boat: Vendée Globe two-timer Rich Wilson’s new ride from France. A step down from an Open 60 perhaps, but still a very interesting boat. I’ve seen a number of these RM boats in France; they seem to be quite popular there. Never seen one in the U.S. before.
Toby Hodges in his Yachting World viddy review of the slightly smaller RM 1260 below describes RMs as the only production-built plywood sailboats in the world, but that is not quite accurate. Waarschip in Holland has been building very cool boats in plywood for a long time. But there’s no denying such boats are indeed unusual.
RM builds its hulls in marine ply and epoxy (the decks are glass) and adds a galvanized steel grid to support the keel:
The RM 1270 has three keel options: twin bilge keels, a lifting keel, or a straight fin keel.
Interior layout:
Stock shot of one under sail:
Two more shots of Rich’s new boat on the dock at MYC:
That dog on the dock is my boy Baxter! He actually wasn’t too impressed by the boat and wanted instead to go up to the office and beg for treats.
Considering there are several US sportfish makers that make custom and series boats with coldmolded ply and the current state of cruising sailboat sales volume here in the US. I’m a bit surprised some builders here haven’t taken up the idea, if I recall some have tried in the past but the timing might be right to avoid the tooling costs for series fiberglass construction now.