Petronella – a Joshua ketch            3back to home page

 

 

Petronella is one of the Joshua designs made famous as a blue water boat by Bernard Moitessier. Her lines were drawn by Jean Knocker, she was built by META in France 1976 and launched in Berlin in 1979. 

Her design details are:

Length  LOA    39’9” or 12.09m

Length  WL      34’3” or 10.43m

Beam               12’1” or   3.68m

Draft                  5’3” or   1.60m

Displacement    12.8 tons or 14,000kg

 

Moitessier was already famous for his circumnavigation in his "Joshua" but became a legend for his manner of leaving the first round-the-world non-stop single-handed race, the Goldern Globe of 1968. The eventual winner and only finisher, Englishman Robin Knox-Johnston, had started more than five weeks before Moitessier but as he turned Cape Horn into the Atlantic Moitessier was confident that his Joshua was the faster boat and would soon overhaul Knox-Johnson's Suhaili. Who knows?  Bernard Moitessier, with a Gallic shrug, decided he had no wish for a silver cup. He had discovered himself on the voyage and he was not a match racer. He sailed back into the Pacific to Tahiti to become a legend in his own lifetime. www.bluemoment.com/moitessier.html

 

Moitessier’s red Joshua is now a national treasure. She is in the French maritime museum, La Rochelle.

 

She still goes sailing. A few years ago she was borrowed by Bernard Peignon to make his 500 miles qualifying trip for a single handed Atlantic race. Bernard Peignon then “borrowed” Joshua to sail the whole race.

 

Other Joshua’s have gone on to demonstrate the pedigree of this design. Swedish owned Northern Light has been to both poles. We saw her in Martinique about 6 years ago. Danish Aurore skippered by explorer Stig Larson (www.havaiki.no/schjetnans_e.htm) was on her way home from Tierra del Fuego when we met in the Azores in 2003, with a trip round Spitsbergen either also done or planned. Our own Petronella has not been to such polar extremes, but in July 2004 she finished her 6th Atlantic crossing.

 

 

Our Petronella is a rare bird. Only about 100 were built yet she is instantly recognisable, an unmistakable classic, head-turning design. A 40ft heavy displacement double ender. Rolled steel plates, round bilge hull. Short bowsprit. Ketch rig. Other than the aft cabin and galley deck houses she is flush decked.

 

Illustration by Joelle Darby

Photo by Alan from Life O’Reilly

 

 

 

We have been sailing on Petronella for the last eight years. She is a wonderfully balanced hull and rig and able to sail herself for days on end, even without the self steering. Her ketch rig is simple and flexible. Her hull has an easy motion. All in all we know she can take care of us when we go offshore. We have become over-enthusiastic proponents of long-keeled, heavy displacement steel boats and the words and wisdom of the great St Bernard.

 

 

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