Owner’s Description
Several years ago, by chance, I caught a glimpse of a boat on the front of WoodenBoat Magazine on the magazine rack at my lumber supply store. I bought a copy and was drawn in to the world of wooden boats. Through an ad in the back, I found my way to Francois Vivier’s website and started looking over his myriad boat plans, and then the plans of some other designers. I very quickly got past the question “should I build a boat?” and got right to “which one?”. When one reaches a certain age, there is no time to procrastinate and I went for it.
I settled on Francois Vivier’s Stir Ven 22.
To my eye, Vivier’s boats are all beautiful. What I didn’t appreciate at first (having never built a boat), but what I eventually came to realize, is how incredibly well thought out his designs and plans are. It takes a certain amount of skill to build a boat, and my woodworking skills were tested and improved. Nothing is square. You’re constantly working in midair in three dimensions with reference points you need to really think about. You learn to be happy with “looks good, is good” and not obsess about accuracy to 1/32 of an inch. But the designer, Vivier, needed not only to think through all the engineering to make his boats function properly, and to consider the aesthetics of symmetry and proportion, but to map out the designs in such a way as to make the boats buildable by amateurs. That’s real skill. He has succeeded! I should add that, before and during my build, Mr. Vivier was very generous with his time, answering many questions.
I’d like to thank Gardner Pickering and Hewesco for their high-quality Stir Ven 22 kit and OCH for producing Geoff Kerr’s series on the Caledonia build and Eric Blake’s tips on working with epoxy and fiberglass cloth.
I decided on the Stir Ven 22 for the following reasons:
1) Good looking with just enough wood showing to please the eye, but not require too much maintenance. The feel of the wooden cockpit is warm and welcoming.
2) Provides a close-to-the-water, fast sailing experience. I have sailed Hobie Cats for 50 years and did not want a slow tub; just something a little tamer, dryer, and comfortable enough to accommodate a light lunch. I also don’t need to sail around with a kitchen and bunks aboard – I like day sailing and the small cabin is right-sized for me.
3) Seaworthy enough for our waters (Lake Huron). It’s unsinkable and self-righting.
4) Comfortable to sail in a variety of wind and sea conditions. The short mast and gaff rig with a 3-reef main allows adjustment to many conditions and a 400-pound centerboard provides good stiffness.
5) Large cockpit for day sailing. It’s comfortable sitting on the side decks with the short coaming height and centerboard case for foot rest. The seats, with custom cushions and back supports, are also quite comfortable.
6) It’s the largest boat I could build in my garage.
7) A Porta-potti was added (after altering the plans to lower a portion of the cabin floor and raise the coach roof a bit).
8) Easy to trailer with an average-sized vehicle and to store in the winter.
9) Can be sailed right up to the beach.
10) Easy to sail solo with minimal rigging.
11) Very maneuverable at the dock. I tied the motor to the tiller with a pully system so rudder and motor rotate together. Remote shift/throttle was added for season two.
For season three, I built a wooden, removable vertical grab rail at the back of the centerboard case and added a compass there. I also built a more robust boom crutch, taller and positioned to port.
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12 thoughts on “22' Vivier Stir Ven Sloop (2019) - LAURA ANN”
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12 thoughts on “22' Vivier Stir Ven Sloop (2019) - LAURA ANN”
Beautiful boat, Gary–I didn’t know one of these was in Michigan!
Just gorgeous. Great workmanship!
Does it come with an Interstate Hwy trailer? Cost please?
Thanks, James. Another nice thing about the design is that it does not require a custom-built sailboat trailer. A standard powerboat trailer with properly placed rollers works. Mine’s an EZ-loader. For comments regarding costs, please see my response to John Florance below.
Lovely boat and great build. I’ve been contemplating this design as my next build for a couple of years. A few questions: how long did it take for you to complete your build? Can you estimate the cost?
My last scratch build was a Welsford Navigator and took me 2.5 years of nights and weekends. I imagine the woodworking skills would be similar for Stir Ven?
The overall time frame for my build was around 2 1/2 years. During the last year, I worked on it, at least to some extent, pretty much every day.
I would guess I spent roughly 1,500 hours from constructing the building frame through to final paint, varnish, fittings, and rigging. That’s with the Hewesco kit and with the benefit of a small, but well equipped, woodshop. I am not a professional, but had a fair amount of woodworking experience going in – although, none with boats.
I should point out that, in addition to actually building the boat, I spent a LOT of time on related activities (over and above the 1,500 hours): studying plans, researching and finding vendors (including someone to cast the iron centerboard…Vivier provided a CAD download for my supplier’s use which helped greatly), researching best materials (everything from custom and standard fittings, to fasteners and rope), ordering and keeping track of parts, choosing colors (the hull is basic flag blue – although it looks lighter in the pictures here – but the deck color is custom-mixed), customizing the plans to suit my circumstances, watching OCH videos, building the boat shop (Michigan weather required some heat pre-turnover and I actually wound up with three shop configurations for three main phases of the build), building a cradle to turn the boat over (this required some head scratching as the boat had to be turned in a confined space and then rotated 90 degrees within the constraints of my “L” shaped garage). But, as you probably know, these kinds of things are very unique to each builder’s situation and impact build time to varying degrees.
Vivier’s plans included very complete fittings and lumber lists which saved me boatloads of time. Aside from Vivier, I found many very helpful vendors along the way. I could probably fill several pages describing who they are and what I learned from them…I won’t do that here.
As far as cost, I wound up at a bit over $26,000 (USD), ready to sail, excluding trailer and motor (which added about another $5,000). I did go high-end on pretty much everything and I think the Stir Ven 22 could be built for somewhat less if desired.
If you’ve built a Navigator, I can’t imagine you’d have any problem building a Stir Ven 22. By the way, I looked at the Navigator and Pathfinder, among others, before settling on Stir Ven…sweet boats!
Hope this helps your decision.
Thanks Gary! Yes, the information helps a lot! People often ask how long it took to build build my Nav…I honestly never counted the time. I know it was 2.5 elapsed years on the calendar. But I’d guess that like most people who’ve been bitten by the boat building bug, total time is inconsequential when one is doing what one loves. I suppose were were thousands of hours spent researching, sourcing, studying, over and above actual time in the shop (garage in my case).
Again, thanks for the helpful info!
An additional thought on build time: I mentioned that I spent a LOT of time on “related activities”. For someone who has built a boat of this nature, now including myself, the time spent on the kinds of things described in that category would be substantially reduced, if not eliminated altogether, on a subsequent build.
Very very nice! I have a glued lap Melonseed Skiff in the show now. Have talked to Vivier a couple of times. Once when he wanted some feedback from me about a sweet small cutter I owned, Sam Devlin’s earlier “Eider” with an unusual but effective two foot draft fixed keel. He did include it after our talk in one of his slightly larger cutters. Another time when I was hoping to go to Britany and he actually offered to loan me a boat, while there. So amazingly generous! Unfortunately, I had to cancel last minute from the France part of that trip> still Hope yet to get to one of their glorious small boat rendezvous! I’m very seriously thinking of building next one of his Ilurs or the 15 or 16 ftr, next up in size , but with a lug yawl rig and tiny, but fully enclosed cuddy cabin. I only have a 19ft. garage to build in. Your’s is beautiful.
Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Kirk Gresham (My Melonseed listed here, if you care to check her out is called “La Vita e Bella”)
Beautiful lead-in picture of your boat your main page, Kirk. The water colors and mountains on the horizon are amazing!
Thanks Gary!
Wasn’t really my favorite, but the one they picked. I guess I’ve gotten spoiled! So used to having peaks like that all around us, here in Port Townsend, I forget, how they blew me away too when I first moved here from Southern California, nearly 30 years ago. That’s Mount Baker, second biggest in our State. I have skied there. If my good friend who took this pick had swung the camera to the right, toward the east, you could also see Mount Rainier, highest in the continental, United States! And in the opposite direction, to the west of us, but not visible from Port Townsend, is Mt. Olympus, the closest to us. Sailing slightly west of Mount Baker, behind me there, takes you across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a bit over 20 miles north of PT. North of there you cross into Canada, with the lovely Gulf Islands on the west side of the Inside Passage. And, depending on your vessel, and how long you want to sail or power every day, in a week or more, you can be sailing in Alaska with 100’s of gorgeously forested islands in between, and lots of wonderful folks on both shores. Americans, Canadians and Native Americans! I’ve been so fortunate to have seen much of those waters and been warmly invited even to escort canoes, for 8 days journey through the villages years ago. Wonderful waters and wonderful life! Hope you can come see them for yourself some day. If you do, look me up!
I’ve always admired Vivier’s designs, though hadn’t given much thought to the Stir Ven 22. Laura Ann has certainly changed that; congratulations on building such a fine boat!
Thanks, William!