Your heartfelt messages that poured into my inbox from all over the world each minute were like fireworks, creating magic to which the universe responded to by regaling us with the most glorious day we could have hoped for.

Kokachin was launched without a glitch in the scorching sunshine and a gentle breeze on Wednesday 22 June 2022. Taittinger champagne exploded in her cockpit and we rushed to pour it over her bows too, delivering the launching speech together:

We name this sailing junk "Kokachin"
We wish she carries us
and all who sail in her
with ease and in safety
Sailing joyfully
to many wonderful destinations
May the seas be beautiful
and the winds favourable & kind.

After leaving the narrows and shallows around the marina she sailed off, gracefully to Plymouth Sound, sailing and tacking to windward with ease. She is comfortable, her decks are wide and secure, cockpit clean and spacious, motion gentle. Pete said she feels Stately.

Here is a short video after leaving Southdown.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1bler3X6Wbw

Or a longer version courtesey of JRA team.

https://youtu.be/SXZrAF3WU_4

Looks like we are going to make it, despite last month’s trials and tribulations with insurance, which caused a last minute delay. A story better not to be told, at least for now.

Preparations are in earnest for the ship shape ship. We are excited and so should Kokachin be. She is ready, looking splendid, unlike us!

The yard just moved us, in preparation for the launch. We can already see the sea through our windows. Sundowners in the cockpit gave us a taste of life to come.

Ring your bells, spread your arms, sharpen your voices, warm your hearts, open your minds, clap your hands, raise your glasses to give Kokachin and us the most amazing send off to the sea.

Wednesday 22 June, middayish UK BST (high tide 1.15pm)

The Splash

Ahoy

Linda & Pete

Over optimistically, I thought we could finish Kokachin in about a year, it took us three years with the two of us working full time (weekends included). 

Very soon, as we started working on her, we realised that  Le Forestiere’s Jonque de Plaisance are complicated boats! Also if she was to meet our needs and wants many things would have to be altered and finished differently. All of this was going to take time.  It was not  a quick job any more, as it looked at the time of infatuation, read – decision to buy her. Both of us wanted to spend time sailing instead of boat building. But does one ever learn.

​Daily hard and long hours of work was followed by household chores and researching / ordering the material. Covid worked in our favour, we had a committing project to complete. Just before the lockdown Pete spent three whole days ordering everything we would need for the boat building.  All the material had to be stored either inside or outside the boat on which we were now living. The biggest nightmare was finding a place to store things, and having to move them around all the time. I spent frustrating hours searching for something which had been moved (who knows where) but we needed it there and then. After the first year Blossom was sold and we moved onboard. While this sounds like a living hell (and probably was), it was much better than living on Blossom,  for many practical reasons. Kokachin was warm and cosy, although cramped.  Often we asked ourselves: “Why on earth did we embark on this madness yet again?” While laughing at her bizarre shape I dreamt of the day when I would sail her. Most of this hard work would be forgotten by then.

It took three years from the boat arriving in Southdown until launch day, working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, two of us for over two years. On the last year we allowed ourselves Sundays off. For the original build Mr Fabrice took 7 years, but part time.  Our workshop was a shed constructed over the cockpit, and to everyone’s amazement, not least ours, it survived for three winters of gales. The materials were stored under the boat,  inside it or in the shed. 

We are often asked: Has she met our expectations? Actually when we bought her we had no expectations or dreams.  We wanted to try something different and she has definitely surprised us – by how well she sails and how comfortable she is at sea in rough conditions down below, we never strap up in the galley and we don’t have lee cloths. While she can roll a bit when sailing down wind or in a rolly anchorage, she heels little and does not slam. She is fun to sail and is surprisingly manoeuvrable despite her long keel and 13 tons displacement. However Linda struggles with the big, heavy rig on her own and finds that the lovely spacious cockpit in harbour becomes very exposed at sea when the going gets rough.  

To see more about her sails and spars see other Kokachin’s pages on her webisite and the rest of the blog post that followed.

Finally Kokachin was launched. She sails well, easily driven and fast. Sailing to windward she tacks through 90 degrees in flat waters and goes about easily, especially when centreboard is down, even in big seas she tacks very well. It is often difficult to assess sailing performance, especially to windward, as there is not another boat to compare against, Recently we sailed in company with friends on a Nicholson 32. They sailed the boat well and had a nice suit of sails. The course was dead to windward for 11 miles, wind 20 to 25 knots and a very rough sea. We were pointing equally well, tacking through about 100 degrees, and making 10 degrees of leeway. The Nicholson was a bit faster, but not by much. We were impressed and so were they. Kokachin is very stiff and even driving to windward she heels no more than 15 degrees. She is spectacularly dry in the cockpit, while we only had a couple of small splashes on the above sail, our friends were drenched. Sailing downwind she doesn’t roll until the wind and seas build up, but by then the foresail will have been reefed and sheeted flat, which dampens the rolling to a certain extent. Because of our vulnerable self steering gybing requires sheeting the main in and then out on the other side and in strong wind this may include dropping a few reefs first.   

On the downside we found that the tiller steered rudder was very heavy work especially as the wind got up. As Kevin Cardiff said: “Not a problem, but a design characteristic”. So far we have tried to tame the heavy steering with a three part handy billy, using the trim-tab to dial out any weather helm and finally steering with the trim-tab. We now cut a chunk at the lower part of the rudder. We need to wait for sea trials to see how effective that is going to be to reduce a  heavy helm. These are only partial solutions and we may well have to resort to wheel steering, which would be a disappointment. But at times, in rough seas the tiller becomes almost uncontrollable. 

Self steering is a very important consideration on long passages.  From the outset the self steering was going to be a challenge! Self steering is with Bill Belcher OTG II wind-vane driving a 20% trim tab on the trailing edge of the rudder. We also found that in lighter winds the wind-vane (3′ x 1′ / 90cm x 30cm)  was not powerful enough to turn a trim-tab. This was a major setback. Kokachin’s rig extends the whole length of the hull and the main sail is sheeted to the aft end of the davits. The wind-vane is placed on the stern rail, inside the main sheet. There was no room to make the windvane bigger so the only solution seemed to be to make the trim-tab balanced.  This necessitated a quick haul out and moving the trim-tab somewhere behind the rudder with 20% balance. This solved the self-steering problem and it now works very well. However the wind-vane is very vulnerable to being swept away by the main sheet (which has happened on our Channel and Atlantic crossing, resulting in a broken wind-vane). We now have installed a strong hoop over the stern rail to give it more protection. We need to see how this will work.

The main sail is 50 sq metres and the fore 30 sq metres, built with Weathermax 80 cloth using Arne’s camber sail design. It has taken a while to get the sails to set properly without too much friction on the mast, also because we had so many other things to focus on – and she sailed well anyway. Originally we were against Hong Kong parrels as we wanted to keep the rig as simple as possible, and they do have a bad press. However, Arne persuaded us to give them a try. So we did. They do work well and do not seem to cause any problems. The sails are set up with a four part halyard, a yard hauling parrel and a fixed throat parrel. There are also batten parrels. Still trying to work out the compromise between creases in the sail and too much tension on the Hong Kong parrels.

The yards are 4 ½ inch X 3mm alloy tubes and the battens are all 50mm x 2mm alloy tubes. During our transatlantic passage the top sheeted batten on the main bent after a couple of involuntary gybes in strong winds, and then broke, otherwise they seemed strong enough.

We are often asked: Has she met our expectations? Actually when we bought her we had no expectations or dreams.  We wanted to try something different and she has definitely surprised us – by how well she sails and how comfortable she is at sea in rough conditions down below, we never strap up in the galley and we don’t have lee cloths. While she can roll a bit when sailing down wind or in a rolly anchorage, she heels little and does not slam. She is fun to sail and is surprisingly manoeuvrable despite her long keel and 13 tons displacement. However Linda struggles with the big, heavy rig on her own and finds that the lovely spacious cockpit in harbour becomes very exposed at sea when the going gets rough.  

Pete Hill

PS:

Kokachin website has not been updated with the latest modifications to the rig and trim tab yet.

For an occasional Kokachin video on YouTube – link:   @kokachin-junkrig-bl3vl

​

We bought Kokachin as an unfinished project in France. The hull, cabin and decks were completed, along with some rudimentary accommodation and part finished mast and rudder. 

Over optimistically, I thought we could finish her in about a year, it took us three years with the two of us working full time (weekends included). 

Very soon, as we started working on her, we realised that  Le Forestiere’s Jonque de Plaisance are complicated boats! Also if she was to meet our needs and wants many things would have to be altered and finished differently. All of this was going to take time.  It was not  a quick job any more, as it looked at the time of infatuation, read – decision to buy her. Both of us wanted to spend time sailing instead of boat building. But does one ever learn.

To see a more detailed description about building her see Kokachin’s pages on her site. This is just a brief overview. 

Exterior

The main requirement was to protect the exterior as much as possible to minimise maintenance and cost in the future.  Below is a short summary on some highlights. For a detailed overview with pictures check the website. 

• The boat had been painted (inside and out) but that was a few years before. So we needed to put several coats of epoxy primer and then the top coats. 
• The cabin sides were made of edge glued planks of maritime pine wood which we covered with 6mm marine plywood and then epoxied. 
• The bottom was given a DIY copper coat with 5 layers of epoxy and copper. 
• Plans called for a steel shoe on the bottom of the keel. Quite apart from having someone to fabricate this long piece of steel, we felt it would be a corrosion problem in future and instead scarfed together 1 inch plywood that was heavily fiberglassed. If nothing else this would form a sacrificial piece at the bottom of the keel.  
• As a finishing touch we laid a douglas fir deck in the cockpit and on the cockpit seats, using 5 mm veneers and the Gougeon system. 
• The side decks and foredeck were covered in fibreglass / epoxy and the cabin top was epoxied. We used Kiwi Grip for the non slip coating

Centreboard was made with three layers of plywood. The middle layer had cut outs for steel plates to be inserted to give negative buoyancy. The whole thing is covered with glass epoxy and copper coated. 

Rudder came with the boat but it was not finished. It needed fibreglassing etc as well as adding the rudder head for the tiller and making the trim tab. The trim tab was hinged on the trailing edge of the rudder. Subsequently it had to be changed to work properly as the wind-vane was not powerful enough. We subcontracted the stainless steel rudder fittings. 

Self-Steering A wind-vane to control the trim-tab was made of plywood to Bill Belcher’s OTG II plans (modified). 

Masts – The masts were made according to the drawings but they seemed to be a little on the light side. We fibreglass them with several layers of heavy unidirectional glass fibre and a layer of fibreglass cloth on the top. It also required constructing the masthead fittings.

Mast Steps – Two mast steps had to be constructed. The forward one was extremely complicated to accommodate the 11 degree rake of the mast, as was cutting the hole through the 3 inch thick deck at an angle. The main mast one was not much simpler either. 

Mast Collar – When the masts were installed a thick fibreglass collar was constructed which is held by 12 10mm bolts screwed into sockets glued into the deck. This was instead of having wedges and their accompanied squeak. 

Cuddy – A plywood sliding cuddy was built over the entrance hatch. 

Sails – One Christmas we rented a Scout hut to make the two sails. It took us only a week to make the sails and then another week later on to finish off the details. 

Engine

The hole through the deadwood for the engine shaft was drilled for us by our shipwright friend with a special long cutting bar. Once this was done the engine beds could be made and eventually the engine was lowered in through the hatch (only just fitted) and bolted down. Bronze stern tube and shaft was made for us which we installed, everything lined up. Fuel lines, electrical wiring and engine controls were also installed

Ballast & Bilges

Ballast was 18 kg cast iron ingots (we even had to recover a ton of those that were stolen from us!) All (3300 kg) had to be carried up on board and fitted into the bilges on top of a layer of rubber. Gaps were then filled with steel punchings before the floorboards were securely fastened on top. 

Interior

We needed a comfortable and warm boat that met our liveaboard cruising needs. With the exception of the main bulkheads, the two bunks, and the spiral staircase, which came with the boat, everything else was built new.

Insulation 

Cabin, decks & hull (down to the stringers) was insulated. It was like building another hull inside the outer one. Patterns between the frames and the deck beams had to be taken for insulation cutting. Framing around the insulation for the finished layer plus the pattern for those had to be made.  The insulation was covered with either tang & groove, thin plywood or cork / carpet. 

Installations

Installing heaters, cooker, wiring, lighting was all extremely complicated which is not easy to explain in a few words – best forgotten!

Carpentry – At times doing the carpentry felt like three dimensional chess, just mind boggling complexities. As well as the job of constructing and fitting all the furniture (which Pete did) , insulating, finishing and painting everything was an equally mammoth task (done by Linda). 

Time & Space

It took three years from the boat arriving in Southdown until launch day, working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, two of us for over two years. On the last year we allowed ourselves Sundays off. For the original build Mr Fabrice took 7 years, but part time.  

Our workshop was a shed constructed over the cockpit, and to everyone’s amazement, not least ours, it survived for three winters of gales. The materials were stored under the boat,  inside it or in the shed. 

Kokachin, originally named Matahina,  started her life on a farm in Bussieres, a little village 70km NE from Paris.  Her hull and deck and some of the interior were built by Mr Jossete, a professional carpenter. He started building her in 2009 and spent two years building the hull alone plus many more on the rest of the boat. Last work he did was in 2016 . He moved away from the area, realising that he would not be able to complete her. Via a grapevine we heard about her being for sale on LeBonCoin in France.

In no time we booked flights, hired a car and went to see her. Our first encounter with this bizarre looking structure surrounded with a vast expanse of French countryside was filled with intense excitement. Having previously decided to build a catamaran, here we were signing a contract for her purchase over glasses of champagne! What one does during infatuation. But why not!?

The drive back to the airport, surrounded by monstrously big fast approaching lorries on busy airport roundabouts, was more terrifying than being in a gale.

Organising her transport was a feat in itself and it cost a fortune. Coordinating the transport, crane and paperwork was critical, our nerves in the UK were frail.  Miraculously everything fell into place: Mr Josset drove in time from Dieppe, the Bour crane made it to the little village and so did the Southern Transport lorry from the UK, not to mention our paperwork arrived at the very last minute.

She made it safely to Southdown and champagne flew once again in August 2019. We were elated and are in anticipation of another celebration soon. 

A Google search of her original name listed a power station in New Zealand. A new name was needed also because of SSR documents and customs forms. Having just recently named “Blossom” our pool of names was exhausted. I flippantly suggested to Pete: “How about Marko Polo’s mistress, he must have had one!?”. Because it is common knowledge on Korcula that Marko Polo comes from there, my birthplace too.  I liked the idea of my boat being likened to him.  To my surprise, shortly Pete exclaimed: “Kokachin”! How funny, who would have thought that google could find Marko Polo’s “mistress”. Probably those watching Netflix would have not been so surprised as were we. 

Apparently Kokachin was a Mongolian princess who was betrothed to the Persian prince Arghun by Kublai Khan who entrusted Marko Polo to take her to Persia. During their 9 year journey to get there (why so long?) something must have happened…. We hope not to take as long a time to get anywhere/somewhere. It’s  not surprising that Kokachin’s dinghy is “Marko” –  an appropriate hierarchy. 

It seems her name might be translated as “Dark Complexion” and by sheer coincidence (and a lot of persuasion) “Kokachin’s” hull is dark too. 

As well as giving us the photographs and permission to use them this is what Mr Josset sent us when asked to comment : 

“At the age of 43, I decided to build a boat a bit off the beaten track and as a carpenter to do a different kind of work. During her construction, I met several extraordinary people  in  the world of the boat building.  Although life does not always grant us success, I am delighted to have sold it to Linda and Peter because in their hands Kokachin will be able to live. While waiting for her to be launched, I can’t wait to be able to walk up her deck, no doubt, filled with real emotions.”