Best of 2013 – The safest boat? It is without mainsail and without bulb

You were born and raised with the belief that a sailboat has to have a mainsail and a keel (understood as a keel where all the ballast is concentrated, normally with a lead bulb). Then, one fine day, cross in the middle of the sea Ernesto Tross sailing serenely and peacefully on White Bear, his 10-meter aluminum boat (self-built like all his boats) that uses only headsails and stands straight on the water despite not having a bulb attached under the hull. In terms of how you are used to conceiving of a sailboat, it is as if you have just been shown a car that runs on only two wheels and an engine with no pistons. But then, who is that white-haired man walking around with such a craft?

MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS UNDER SAIL
Ernesto Tross has loved sailing since the late 1950s, when the painter Manlio Guberti, first one of his teachers and then a friend, first took him sailing from the Gargano to the Tremiti. After that experience he had a series of boats that he always built himself or together with friends: the first, in 1962, was a plywood outrigger canoe armed with Portuguese pennola (the Malibu Outrigger designed by Warren Seaman), followed by a 7-meter trimaran on plans by Norman Cross. Then, in 1974, he launched a 13-meter catamaran (designed by James Wharram) with which he sailed around the Mediterranean. In the late 1970s, after losing his wife and with his children grown up, he got the urge to “go out,” to the ocean. that is how, in 1978, he built his first aluminum boat, a monohull, designed together with his friend architect Carlo Martignoni. “I wanted a boat that was very strong and ‘rollable,’ so I could lock myself in and be safe when the sea was stormy,” Tross explains. It was 12 meters long with two equal masts that both carried two jibs. “On the aft mast was a mainsail with little surface area, and fortunately, the boom was very small and light, because I remember frequent contact with my head. However, it couldn’t hurt that much because I had the center cockpit.” With that boat, Tross crossed the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and arrived in Bombay, India.

THE BOAT TO KNOW
From 1982 to 2000, based in Malaysia, he sailed throughout Asia, even traveling within the continent by moped and public transportation. When he decided to return home, he sold the boat as scrap, by weight, in the East, but took away several pieces including the watertight doors, portholes, anchors, ropes, and many more, which he immediately reused to build (in 2000, on a lawn made available to him in Mario Giua’s yard in Fiumicino) the 9-meter Grey Bear, obviously angled and aluminum; this was his first boat, designed by himself, without a keel. She did, however, have a mainsail, battened and with a high aspect ratio, but congealed on a perfectly vertical backstay spaced out behind the mast (which was then angled aft) so as not to suffer from the latter’s turbulence. In 2009, however, he did not have time to put the word out that he wanted to sell Grey Bear that someone immediately bought it for him. Thus, he realized the White Bear (the “bear” is himself, the “gray” and “white” are the colors of his hair that have changed over the years), with the same hull as the previous boat, but 10 meters long, rigged with a mast placed far aft, on which are hoisted only headsails (jibs, genoa, foresails, yankee, and sometimes carboners). For Tross, White Bear is a representation of the ideal boat for those who want to sail: simple and safe. Two features achievedby eliminating the mainsail and keel, but also through a number of small other details.

MAINSAIL IS A COMPLICATION
The reasons why it is better to do without the mainsail are quickly explained by Tross: “First of all, the elimination of the boom, which is one of the biggest dangers in the boat. Then, also the saving of money, because for the same surface area, a mainsail costs twice as much as a jib, since its construction, with pockets, battens, reefs and so on, requires more work.” Also, speaking more in depth just about simplicity and safety, “When the mainsail breaks, it is a big trouble, because the boat becomes unsteerable; now more than ever, as the trend is to build boats with huge mainsails and tiny jibs. Of course, then you can patch it up, but the moment the main sail fails, where do you go? While among those in the bow, there is no such thing as the most important. I have an endless sampler of them, all with garrods, of all types and surfaces; if I break the foresail, I change it to a jib and continue quietly on my course.” Tross is convinced that there is no difference between a mainsail-jib sail plan and a jib-only one, so he prefers the one that is easier to manage. “My rig is simpler, less expensive and offers more guarantees,” he says. “I’ve had the mainsail boats, and doing without the boom is a big advantage; it’s dangerous and complex, with the vang, trope and other pieces breaking off. The jib, on the other hand, is a simple sail; I only have a couple of winches on deck.” In comparing the Bermudian rig with that of his White Bear, Tross does not speak of “efficiency,” because generally that term is associated with talk of performance and speed, whereas to him the boat is for boating. “Upwind I tighten a 50-degree angle to the wind, including drift. More than satisfactory; I don’t sail to get somewhere first or to break a record! Besides, in cruising you have to choose routes favorable to the wind, not against it. I’ve been cruising in the Indian Ocean for 18 years and I’ve done four or five upwinds at most!”. If someone proved to Tross that his sail plan yields even a little less than one with a mainsail and jib (perhaps actually comparing them on two identical boats), he would never trade simplicity and safety for a few more upwind angles and a few more knots of speed.

KEEL INCREASES RISKS
Again for safety and simplicity, Tross’s White Bear does not have a bulb keel, but an integral movable keel, i.e., a simple wooden “blade” that is lowered only in upwind and crosswind gaits to counter the drift. The lead ballast is all placed inside the boat, at the bottom of the hull. As with the choice to use a rig without a mainsail, this solution stems from more than one reasoning. “If I run aground, I can easily throw out some lead until the boat gets light enough to float again and start again,” says Tross, mindful of a firsthand experience. “With the 12-meter, which had a keel, I hit rocks in Tunisia at a depth of one meter, while with the White Bear, I would run over them without even noticing. The boat was lying on its side banging all through the storm. it was made of aluminum, so it just sketched out and afterwards I put it back together with a trivial body work, otherwise it would have been ruined. With the boat I have now, which has a flat bottom and 3 tons of lead in the bilge, if I go dry, the hull stays straight. In fact, in an emergency, I can actually decide to go beached voluntarily!” But the big reason Ernesto Tross does not want the bulb keel is to have more stability and safety in rough seas. In fact, by raising the keel, his boat is not in danger of “stumbling” in the waves. “When you are in the midst of breakers that push the boat sideways, the keel becomes a powerful mechanism that creates the lever for capsizing. If I’m in the waves, I lift the keel to prevent the boat from stumbling. Last year, coming back from Greece, I found myself in a storm. As the wind picked up, the waves reached a height of a couple of meters. I hoisted the foresail, set to the streamer hood, and removed the drift. The boat slid down the wave while remaining flat all the time. A marvel!”

THE OTHER DETAILS
No mainsail and no bulb: these are the characteristics that, according to Ernesto Tross, a sailboat must have in order to sail safely. “Assuming that a sailor does not have the problem of speed, because even if he comes ashore the next day nothing happens to him. In fact, the longer he is out at sea, the better he is, because often it is when he comes ashore that his troubles begin,” Tross points out with a tone of irony. Then, it has to be metal: “I prefer aluminum, but only because it requires less maintenance than iron.” Absolutely watertight: “With hatches and gaskets. It should be closed like a jar. When there is a gale I shut myself in and wait for it to endisca.” It must have a solid, flat deck: “You have to size it by calculating that 5 tons is the overload caused by a breaker. There should be no deckhouse, which is just a hindrance and, when the boat capsizes, is the main cause of sinking, because the water comes in right there.”