The Boat

Sauvage is a Wauquiez Centurion 40S built in 2007.  Wauquiez has a reputation for building strong and very able blue water sailing boats. The 40S is a medium displacement racer/cruiser that sails well and has a beautiful interior.  The specs on it are:   41' 2" LOA, 36' 5" LWL.  It has a generous sail area giving it an SA/D of 21.  The D/L is 131.  This is above average for a typical crusing boat.  Practical Sailor has a nice writeup on the Centurion 40S.

The cockpit has a great open layout with plenty of room for a racing crew.  The rig is a fractional rig with swept back spreaders and no running backstays.  The interior is finished in teak.  It has an large main salon and galley, a v-berth cabin forward, head aft, and a large aft cabin under the cockpit.  The v-berth will be all storage for the race, leaving four berths (two in the main salon and two aft). 

A huge cockpit lazarette swallowed five spinnakers.  There is ample storage throughout the boat.  Seven guys along with all their gear and food for two weeks take a lot of room.  The shower stall has been temporarily converted to be the freezer room, holding three ice chests of frozen food. So far we have been able to find room for everything.  Tankage includes over 100 gallons of water and about 50 gallons of diesel.  We carry another 50 gallons of water in plastic jugs giving us about 2 gallons per day per person.

The liferaft lives under the helmman's seat and can be deployed in about ten seconds by opening the swim platform stern.  Other safety equipment includes a Lifesling, an inflatable MOM unit, strobes, lots of expensive SOLAS flares, a drogue, a replacement emergency rudder, and an extensive medical and first aid kit.  Each crew member has a state of the art hydrostatic inflatable PFD with harness and tether.  Jack lines down each side deck and numerous padeyes in the cockpit enable the entire crew to always be clipped in anywhere on the boat. 

Electronic gadgets include a GPS, chartplotter, radar, VHF radio, and all the regular sailing instruments (wind, speed, depth, compass).  The coolest gadget we have is a KVH INMARSAT satellite phone and data terminal.  This gives us both voice and internet access anywhere, anytime at sea.  We will be using this tool to retrieve regular weather reports including OPC charts and GRIB files, along with various text forecasts.  This unit also allows us to send and receive email and update this blog.   Our daily position reports will be sent by this means, too.  The satellite unit is the blob just above the radar in this picture:



So what does the name "Sauvage" mean?   We think it's French for:  wild, savage, heathen, uncivilized, or untamed.  Several of our wives would probably agree this is appropriate for this crew.  :)

-Jeff