Sailing across the Atlantic is an adventurous dream many wish to accomplish. When the opportunity arose to do it on the fastest monohull sailing boat of the 80’s, it had to be seized. What better occasion to create family bonds, than end up in the sea on such a vessel.
The Kriter VIII is a very unique vessel designed to compete in the Route du Rhum race in the 1980s. It never won but it did achieve 1st place in it’s category… twice. In brief, this is not you’re weekend sailboat.
Kriter VIII, arriving in Pointe-à-Pitre.
Stretching at 75’ in length with some sails up of 300 square feet, there is nothing conventional about this 17 ton aluminium ship. For the figure lovers, our top speed was recorded at 24 knots, and crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Cabo Verde to Guadeloupe took less than 10 days. Comfort accessories such as air conditioning, sun shades, et cetera are…. non-existent.
What you see in the film is likely day 7 or 8, one of the much calmer and slower days of our trip. I isolated my family in the images, with the exception of a shot of the captain, but we were a total of 9 onboard. That’s on a ship designed to navigate solo!
For documenting this epic trip, the Bolex was ideal. I knew it could be trusted were electricity could not be readily provided and were the high humidity environment caused some simple electronic devices such as headlamps to work intermittently. The Bolex performed flawlessly.
