Round the World racer turned perfect cruiser | Falken tour | Yachting World

Falken was a neglected ex-round the world racer before skipper Andy Schell turned it into his ultimate offshore yacht for bluewater cruising and adventurous passagemaking. Andy Schell & Mia Karlsson from 59° North Sailing take us on a tour.
This tour was shot last year, and Falken is now running a full programme including a transatlantic, with Pacific voyages planned for 2025. Andy shares his thinking and ideas behind the refit and how they set out to create a true bluewater cruiser for safe and comfortable offshore passages. With thanks to 59° North Sailing for the footage
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[@ianscott3180]

A proper yacht for proper voyaging. Many, many years ago, a friend and myself bought a very tired, retiring First 501 from Moorings Charter in Saint Martaan. She was badly equipped with sails that should have retired years previously. We sailed her back to the UK, no AIS, plotters, radar ect. People said that we were mad, but we wanted a "big" boat with little money. The keel remained bolted, the mast remained upright but we were mighty releaved when we got to Plymouth. A few months later with a lot of hard work and limited funds we had a boat that gave two families years of fun both in The Solent and the Med. At 72 I still wish that I had done some seriuos exploring afloat but she was not the boat for that. I loved the video and think of the places that I never saw. 😂

[@59NorthSailing]

Thanks, cool project you had there too!

[@williamyamm8803]

Love this kind of video showing us original realisations/transformations ! Amazing boat and realisation ! Greetings from France

[@viktorkarlsson5270]

Well done. The tour sparked fond memories of my two trips aboard. HOLD FAST.

[@jamesdadd1908]

Way to go Andy and Mia! Falken looks spectacular, especially her massive cockpit.

[@zackworrell535]

My father did a project like this back in the late 80's. He bought a retired 1970's Minimaxi built by Direktor-Gunnel, originally named Boomerang 2, a refitted it to be a luxury cruiser. It was an aluminum sloop at 65'. The finished boat was beautiful with an interior done by a lear jet interior designer and the boat had early A/C system and much of rigging had been converted to hydraulic power. I had many great memories on theat boat.

[@benoitk5354]

Was lucky enough to sail on Falken from Kinsale to Lagos; an amazing adventure on an amazing boat!

[@buzzbase1]

Thank you for putting the heads forward and aft. No more problems from ‘Vic the Toilet Slayer’ on my next trip with you!

[@OGillo2001]

Did 40,000 nm on the Farr 65's, great boats, and looks like a good job you did!

[@59NorthSailing]

Thanks! Was a dream project :)

[@HakanSjo]

Great video! Andy and Mia, congrats to you on your new cruising machine. If you ever swing bye Stockholm with Falken I hope I’ll get to see her.

[@OurLadyDefiant]

Great job showing the boat. I'm a huge proponent of incorporating "racing" tech (aka good sailing tech) into a cruising boat. We have what is essentially an offshore race boat that we live aboard, race, and cruise, and what's amazing is how some of the racing characteristics of a boat can actually be a huge benefit for cruising. Just an example, having a deeper keel with weight as deep on the keel as possible, while having a light/carbon rig means you're actually way more stable and experience less roll at anchor than other cruising boats (downside being that you need 20+ ft. of depth to anchor in... but that's usually not an issue in most places we cruise).

[@59NorthSailing]

Couldn't agree more. A 'racing' boat designs the sailing controls first, and the living arrangements around them. I prefer that order.

[@Aoi_Fans]

Andy missed a chance to pair up his pink neon bobble hat with those skinny acid wash jeans. That would be quite the look.

[@LP-gs3xj]

Absolutely stunning

[@bybeka1]

Super well refit, such a great boat! 👏

[@boguing1]

A boat being sailed upwind properly, not a common sight on KZbin. Carry on!

[@pieterh3692]

Really well done !

[@LoanwordEggcorn]

Beautiful boat. Thoughtful and thorough refit/redesign. At this point AGM is obsolete since Lithium Iron Phosphate is so much better, including for separate engine and navigation banks.

[@mosca3289]

Beautiful interior

[@FighterFred]

Impressive.

[@paulgilliland2992]

I love that Norwegian American accent.

[@59NorthSailing]

Swedish :)

[@ZoneTelevision]

I think this is faster than most Cruising Catamarans.

[@peterlangley2473]

Impressive boat, system redundancy was mentioned, if the engine fails mid ocean does the hydropower system proved enough energy to service all the requirements?

[@59NorthSailing]

Yes, the W&S covers us at sea. I only charged with the engine for I think 4 hours in an 11-day trans-Atlantic. Most energy consumption comes from watermaker, so if engine or alternators were to die offshore, we'd just start rationing water to save power.

[@paulmerron3947]

I think I may have sailed this boat several times before, was this Albatros or Whirlwind or perhaps neither.

[@59NorthSailing]

This was indeed ALBATROSS II from UKSA! Originally SPIRIT OF DIANA in her RTW racing days...

[@paulmerron3947]

@@59NorthSailing Ahh good old Albatross. Glad you have good access to the quadrant, she had problems there. I was UKSA instructor, took her out with a crew and in the western solent she swung violently to port. Long story short, her rudder was 180 degrees out and facing forward. Tide changed in the medina during a quadrant repair. Like what you have done with her and super glad she is still in good use, a solid ship.

[@ztoox1]

All good guys and very fun and good project.. just please don’t lie when you don’t know.. Such as the maxwells windlass.. just say things like a greater big and strong windlass, as its almost the smallest they make,…….

[@59NorthSailing]

Oops, yeah my bad :)

[@Jimbocky]

Thanks for sharing. I have a question regarding iPads. I have seen really great software for flying for iPads but my search for sailboat or boat related hasn’t turned up too much. I have Navionics on one and it works great. What other software are you running on your iPads.

[@59NorthSailing]

We've found that TZ iBoat is the best for navigation. It's a mobile version of the ubiquitous TimeZero nav software you see on PCs and chartplotters. It's really great. Not perfect, but almost. For Europe we also use SeaPilot, which is really very good. Both can connect wirelessly to onboard N2K data.

[@m1les007]

Shame they didn’t talk about they designed the Yorkshire Tea storage area.

[@alexandreronin7515]

Awsome boat !! Just not quite the right way to grind !!

[@borup2638]

What was the wood used for the interior called?

[@mattdouglas5570]

What was the boats old name?

[@59NorthSailing]

ALBATROSS II when she was a UKSA, previous to that she was SPIRIT OF DIANA.

[@andyjasso3050]

I used to freelance for ondeck in Antigua and Portsmouth they had farr 65's Is fallen one if their old Farr 65?

[@59NorthSailing]

Yes indeed! She was originally named SPIRIT OF DIANA, and OnDeck would have owned her.

[@andyjasso3050]

@@59NorthSailing I was originally sailing on a shipman 63 in Antigua and was in the bar with the ondeck crew most evenings and when I arrived at Charleston for the Charleston to Bermuda race I had the first mate from spirit of Minerva asking if I could skipper the boat for the race as skipper woke up with a collapsed lung and had to find replacement. I ended up sailing all the way back to Portsmouth and sorted the boats out over the summer as they all had wrecked gensets and engines. I worked with ondeck until I got a chief engineer job on a motoryacht that was in Indonesia.

[@aphrodite3216]

What is the boat made of? Kevlar? Carbon? Fiberglass s or e etc?

[@59NorthSailing]

Solid fiberglass with a few layers of Kevlar sandwiched in the middle. Foam-cored decks. Two-piece keel with a stainless fin and lead lower section/half-bulb. Displaces 60,000 pounds, with a SA/D of 21.4.