Here is a great story of a true adventurer. If you are a sailor you will really like his vessel and even if you are not, you will enjoy this story.
We are slicing south through the Bahamas on a warm March day, sailing on a delicious close reach flying a full mainsail, a staysail and a big laminated Code 0-type gennaker that furls on its own luff. We’re making good progress, maintaining an honest 5 to 7 knots of speed over the ground in a true wind of just 7 to 11 knots. It is, on several different levels, a significant moment.
Throughout his life Jimmy has prided himself on his careful balancing of pragmatism and adherence to principle. This is a valuable lesson he learned from the fate of his father, a loyal retainer of the Romanian royal family who refused to bow to reality after the Second World War and consequently died in a Communist prison. The balancing act is certainly evident in the design of Aventura IV, which was conceived through a close collaboration between Jimmy and Garcia Yachting, and just now Jimmy is explaining to me how the Code 0 sail was one of the things he had to be talked into.
“I was skeptical, but now I am very glad to have it,” he confesses with a happy shrug of his shoulders. “They showed me photos of a boat sailing with one, and I thought it looked pretty good. So why not try it?”