British engineering for a Canadian cutter
Mark and Murielle Ovenden are building a steel cutter of their own design in Ottawa, Canada. The 51ft 28 ton Mimi Jane is inspired by the sailing work boats of Murielle’s native Brittany, more particularly of her home town of Concarneau. Their website mimijane.ca is a well documented story of the build, which is taking shape nicely.
One of the items they have raved about is their steel windlass made by Webster’s at Deep Blue Engineering .
“When we started planning this boat, a classic and rugged looking manual windlass was clearly part of the big picture. We quickly found out that it wasn’t going to be easy to find the windlass we dreamed of for our boat and a point came when we accepted we were likely going to have to fall back on a modern shiny electric capstan (booo) . It’s not by fault of searching, it just seemed like no one made what we really wanted. Until….Mark stumbled onto the Deep Blue Engineering website,” Murielle said. “Someone had started making traditional manual geared windlasses in Britain and wow, are they ever gorgeous!”
“David Webster did a great job with making time to chat on the phone to make sure what he suggested would function properly on our boat,” Mark adds. “And we ordered the coollest windlass for our vessel: Deep Blue Engineering’s No 2 Manual Windlass for vessels over 25 tonnes. We sent him a sample of chain for the gypsy which he custom machined for North American 1/2″ chain (what we can easily get over here in Canada).
And then, the 162 kg beast finally arrived in Ottawa, Canada, from Britain! The windlass was put aboard and then when the couple were visiting Brittany they decided they needed a second winch handle – which they had delivered by the eco-trading vessel Grayhound.
Painted with deck furniture in place
Windlass in place next to the forehatch
Mimi Jane sailplan
Mimi Jane (mimijane.ca )
Length on deck: 51ft6in (15.72m)
Beam: 15ft3in (4.6m)
Draught: 6ft9in (2m)
Displacement: 55000lbs
Ballast: 20000lbs (lead)
Rig: Dundee (yawl)
Main mast: 55ft (stick length) Mizzen mast: 28ft 4 inch
Bow sprit: 26ft
Main boom: 27ft
Mizzen boom: 14ft4in