s/y Ariadne

The Ariadne is a steel-hulled sailboat designed and built by Paul Böhling from 1964. The ruffle and deck are made of wood, the steel deck has only deck arches, i.e. not the typically rusting steel deck under the wooden deck. Good.

Ariadne’s hull went through the pool tests, and apparently swam pretty well as it participated in the German team in the 1965 Admirals Cup. There were then three boats / land in that sailing competition and Ariadne was the middle class representative. The success of the race was hampered because of local sea currents, according to the previous owner. The race took place on the English Channel, which is known to have quite strong tides and thus also sea currents.

Ariadne pictured above in the Admirals Cup, photographed by the world-famous Beken of Cowes. Beken photographed all the boats in the race. The winning country for the Admirals Cup in that year, 1965, was UK and Australia came second.

Originally, Ariadne had one pair of winches, but the cockpit was modified almost immediately (next year?) At a famous Danish shipyard and at the same time got another pair of winches. Good job.

Dimensions (from the original drawing):

• length 12.50m
• water line 8.92m
• width 3.56m
• draft 1.70m
• weight 9.96t

Masthead rig

• Mast height from deck 14.0
• Main sail 32.58
• Genua (x0.85) 29.98
• Sail area 62.57
• Spinnaker sides 14.10m, foot 9.05m

Fuel tank 340L

Unfortunately, the structural drawings have disappeared. A copy of a few drawings exists as above. The RORC measurement report from 1964 below tells you the essential dimensions of the hull. The original exists.

It can be seen from the RORC measurement report above that the thickness of the hull is 3.5mm. That is still the case in practice, although a few tenths of mm have disappeared from some places. At the bottom of the keel the thickness is probably 4.5mm and at the very bottom of the keel apparently 5.5mm. These estimates are based on hull thickness measurements I made in the spring of 2018.

The engine was originally a Volvo Penta D4, a Swedish marinated OM636. In 1979, it was replaced by the WM-36, which is the OM636 marinated by the German W, the base engine in question was manufactured in Spain under license after MB itself had already ceased production. The teak deck was changed in 1995 and its structure changed from a mere 35mm thick teak strips to a 15mm teak with two 18mm mahogany plywood glued together.

Equipment in spring 2017 before the first spring renovation:

• Engine WM-36, ie Mercedes-Benz OM636, 26kW as base engine. Gearbox HBW 10-2R.
• Sept is not existing, at least for now
• Gauges: Sumlog wire locks An old “rotating” echo
• Raymarine A60 GPS
• Radio directional device from the 60’s
• VHF existing dating from about 80s

The first launch - 1964 - was recorded on film, this is a link to the blog post: Ariadne launch 1964

How it all started -> linkki