You may have read it in the last post: All that was open and left to do after so many years being a frequent company to the Berckemeyer yachts was to actually sail with them. A rare occasion, to be honest: Those owners who are lucky to get one of the few annual slots in the shipyards and – much more valuable – who get awarded a slot with designer Martin Menzner, are usually so happy and so busy sailing their precious yachts that it was literally impossible to get one to sail. At least for me.
But, being the lucky guy who I am, the lovely owners-couple of the BM50 agreed to take me with them on a day long shakedown seatrial with their brand new yacht a few days ago. Martin Menzner, being a keen sailor himself and two fellow seaman joined at a misty morning in Kiel-Schilksee. At last I was going to sail a big Berckemeyer, no rain shower, no fog nor any other dismal weather could take away my pleasant anticipation!
A passagemaker´s cockpit
You may have seen this boat – GOLUX as she has been christened just a few days before – in various stages of her building process. As I stated in my last article, albeit being mostly similar to her sister ships, each Berckemeyer is basically a one off. Designer Martin Menzner will adjust the details in such a way that seemingly small details, as the cockpit layout and winch positions, will suit exactly the needs and demands of the owners.
Looking down into GOLUX´ cockpit from the pontoon, you can clearly see what this boat is about: Passage making! Two large aft lockers which go deep down into the lazarette will house anything from tools and fenders to a deflated dinghy. Steering wheel columns (which we will see later in more details) on double rudders, of course and a large classy bench-situation form the cockpit. What I found interesting on this boat was the fact that the seating benches do not take on the full length of the cockpit all the way to the steering.
This is partially done so that the winch operators can grind the four Genoa and Jib winches whilst standing upright (and not kneeling on the bench, which I personally hate!). The winch layout is massive on GOLUX: No less than seven winches (Andersen of course!) are located in the cockpit. The two aftermost winches are used to tighten the backstays, they can also work as mooring winches. Then a set of two big drums for the Genoa- and Gennaker sheets and two wirking winches for halyards, reefing lines and such. King of this setup is the massive mainsheet winch, mounted on a pedastal in the middle of the cockpit. Only the two working winsches are electrified, the owner jokes: The mainsheet winch is their „onboard workout station“.
Only the good stuff
A Berckemeyer is a special yacht in every aspect. And also in every detail. These boats know no compromise, at least not when it comes to fittings. The brands and products in use are top shelf-quality. Not because these boats are status symbols or meant to be used for swaggering. Martin Menzner insists on those because these are yachts made to be able to literally sail anywhere. In any conditions. You cannot save money on fittings, lines and equipment when your product faces the real stuff.
Apart from the absolutely flawless craftsmanship connected to the aluminium-hull which in this case has been made by legendary Dutch company Jachbouw Folmer, you can see the manifestatio of this principle in every corner of the boat. That an Andersen winch is common sense aboard a Berckemeyer, I´ve said more than enough. On GOLUX, they went for the latest generation of power jammers by Spinlock, for example. Those are taming lines and ropes by Gottifredi Maffiolo.
The full Carbon rigg by Hungarian composite specialists Pauger is pure eye-candy. Not only that, the three-spreader mast is a custom made beauty with many nice details. Pauger, building not only parts and full riggings, is the principle shipyard manufacturing the Black Pepper boats, the RC 44 and some very exciting Imoca 60-yachts, latest of which is the OCEAN LABS by Phil Sharp. Anyway, I´m zoning out here a bit, Pauger-rigged Berckemeyer, a perfect couple!
GOLUX is also equipped with a mainsheet traveler, which I found a bit odd at first sight. The sheet seems relatively short, not even utilizing the full width of the deckhouse´s rooftop. Asking Martin about the reason, he tells me that this traveler is set up to be used only in light to medium wind conditions when the yacht has to sail upwind. In this, the boom could be trimmed well to windward to the exact midship position to impove pointing. Sounds reasonable. For today wind speeds of up to 20 knots TWS with occasionally stronger gusts are in the forecast, so no need for using that I guess.
Back at the helm, the owners went for a pretty standard metal steering wheel with nice leather covering. Onboard electronics are a micture of B&G plotter and sensors paired with NKE displays and equipment. This BM50 features a retractable bow thruster, no stern thruster to be precise. Engine-wise a Yanmar Diesel engine is mounted. At 15.45 meters lenght overall and and a beam of 4.36 meters, the boat displaces roughly 15 tons. She is not an extreme lightweight, but also not heavy. So, how does she perform then?
Let´s cast off!
After a short get together and welcome, we prepare the yacht for casting off. The owners stow away the fenders, showing the rediculously huge bench lockers. These are so big, you can stand inside. This is due to the special interior layout of a Berckemeyer. Where most ordinary cruisers have aft cabins all underneath the cockpit deck, a Berckemeyer just has not.
Literally all of the volume underneath the cockpit floor is stowage. The aft cabins are placed much more forward in the hull. You should check the layout drawings to fully appreciate the clever usage of internal volume here. Anyway, back to the boat: We leave the lines ashore and are quickly underway. Steering free from the shallow waters of the marina, we head into the wind and put the mainsail halyard onto the winch. Faces look up as the 86 square meters laminate main slowly but surely goes up.
The owners went for a cruising laminate. It´s strange to see a „USA“ sail number on the garment, almost as proud as the Stars and Stripes flying proudly in the wind at GOLUX´ stern. After some 20 or so seconds the main is up. Boat bears away, wind fills the sail and the owner kills the engine instantly. As the boat has still some issues with the anemometer-sensor high up above us, we can only guess the wind speed, but I´d say we had some 10 to 15 knots at that moment. GOLUX heads upwind with 5 knots SOG already. Under main solely …
I´ve already mentioned the flying backstays of this yacht. This configuration I haven´t seen before. It´s a combination of two backstays, one is attached to the mast top and one just underneath the third spreader. Booth are operated (tightened and loosened) by one single lashing. Each winding tackle is diverted onto the aft-most winch. I love sailing with running backstays because that´s extra safety plus a very powerful trimming device. Hats off to the owners who apparently went for a true sailboat, not for the most convenient, lazy-man´s two-winches German mainsheet monster …
Gennaker-time!
As we beared away, pointing our bow towards Denmark, Martin suggests to get up the Gennaker. Perfect conditions, he said. The big sails bag is hauled to the fore deck, sheets connected. A matter or minutes for the three skilled sailors. I admit I felt a bit misplaced because usually I am the first to offer a helping hand, but these three know each other so well and work together to efficiently (without even speaking a word) that I could fully concentrate on taking pictures.
As it is normal and perfectly fine for a shakedown seatrial, getting up the Gennaker didn´t go as planned. The reefing line pulling up the sleeve apparently had curled up forming a knot inside the sock, so that it took the guys a couple of minutes to take the whole sail down again, uncurl the knot and getting it up. But then, with a big „Hooray!“, the white blister unfolded in all ist beauty.
The yacht immediately heeled a bit and you could easily feel the instant acceleration. It fascinates me so much, everytime again and never fails to amaze me, just how effective and easy these huge, impressive light wind sails are! I mean, the sheer size can be intimidating when standing on the bow, glazing at the huge bulge over your head – and at the same time, it is so nimble, so fragile, yet being able to pull 15 meters of metal throug the water at such high speeds! Gennakers are a class of their own.
Heading back into the cockpit, one of the guys decided to sail the Gennaker actively, out of his hand. Normally, on a boat that size and knowing about the sheer power and load of such a huge sail, you´d put the sheet onto a winch, but he just sat there, sheet diverted from leeward to windward, pulling and easing just as the boat steered before the wind. And boy, have we been going to enjoy a ride now!
Instantly to planing-mode
Now, that´s what I came to see, right? GOLUX has sprung to life and she is dashing through the water like nothing. I mean, 50 feet is a big boat size for sure and up until now I was only used to be on planing boats much smaller – like my First 27 SE, the Pogo „Class 40“ being my biggest boat I was actively surfing on. Now, that´s new to me, at it is breathtaking!
The moment when the wake loses its tight hold and lets go of the transom, it is always such a special moment! When the loud gurgle at the stern abruptly comes to a hold and just a faint „Swooosh“ hits your ears, this is just priceless! Full sailor´s joy. I catch exactly this moment with my camera, the whole yacht tangibly makes a jump forward and then … she surfs on her own wake. What a glorious moment this always is!
Speed indication turns double-digit in a matter of seconds. From 5.5 knots under main solely GOLUX maxes out at 10, 11 knots SOG with ease. These 15 tons of aluminium, pulled over the water by this awe-inspiring 240 square meters Gennaker is nimble as a small dinghy. Howling with joy, I can only see smiling faces all around. Hell, this is fun!
One happy designer …
As I return from down below, trying to get some shots through the big windows of the deck house, I see Martin Menzner smiling. Letting go of the stresses of the past months, forgetting the trouble and challenges every single new built Berckemeyer yacht has to tackle, this is now also his moment. Sun comes out between stormy clouds, as do the smiles.
For some reason, Martin manages to come up with hull designs which are magically combining internal volume with a high speed potential. Usually you trade performance for comfort, but his designs are renowned for beeing lush and luxurious, offering huge amounts of internal space by ticking all the boxes promising sailing fun, nimble steering properties and most of all, speed. I can only try to imagine how deeply satisfying this must be for him now.
It´s the same for the two crew members, who have a lot of fun tweaking the sails and also the owner couple. It´s an American-German couple, keen sailors having owned various yachts and boats, just re-joining the sailing community after a few seasons aboard an explorer-type power boat. GOLUX will be based in Seattle and frankly, this is where a yacht like this belongs: Rugged, rough, pure and beautiful nature. Dreaming ourselves away, everyone for his own dreams, we spend a few miles dashing down under Gennaker. Until it is time to go on with the test program.
Checking the upwind performance
Taking down the Gennaker is a no-brainer after the hidden knot had now finally been removed. GOLUX was sailing so fast that we arrived at the Kiel Bay TSS entry buoy quicker than I ever had done myself when sailing here. Putting her dead downwind, the guys take in and dismount the Gennaker from the halyard, stow away the large sail bag (into the front locker, which is a sauna (!) too) and a hard rudder later the yacht´s bow sprit pointed upwind again.
As wind speed had been picking up quite a lot during our Gennaker dash-down, we decided to unfurl the Jib. The Berckemeyer BM50 comes with a cutter-rigg, meaning a self-tacking Jib and an overlapping genoa are up and readily available at any given time. This has some nice advantages, like being able to sail with optimized sail area in stronger winds with the Jib rather than going for the partially reefed Genoa, but it also has some downsides. Having to almost roll in the Genoa when tacking is the most annoying. Well, a boat is always a set of compromises …
Having put the Jib into the wind, the boat sprung to life again. With wind speed well over 20 knots now, we tried a strict upwind point of sail. What can I say? Never under 8 knots SOG and still foaming at her stern. Well-heeling, which was a sublimly exalted feeling, GOLUX marched cutting through the little choppy waves as if it was nothing! Apart from the planing-fun, the motion of the boat was the most intrigueing fact of this trip.
I mean, pointing as hard as you can and going fast upwind almost always means … slamming. More or less, modern flat-bottomed planing hulls, by avoiding the V-shape, are destined to slamming into waves. As much fun as it is to surf, to plane, as much of an annoyance is the poor upwind seakindness of modern hulls! Unless, well, unless you sail a Berckemeyer, apparently. Because frankly, there wasn´t any slamming, no rocking motion, no pumping of the mast. At all! She heeled like hell and you really had to check every step and get a firm grip when moving about, but her motion was so gentle and smooth, you´d expect this kind of nice, soft swinging motion on a running point of sail at best! Amazing.
Gaining confidence
The owner couple rotated at the steering. Being aboard sailing GOLUX, their new boat, for the second time, they were really appreciative and thankful for having a crew aboard. Not having to concentrate on the sails and the trim, both could focus on handling, the feel of the helm and getting a feeling for how their yacht behaves. In this, they both quickly gained more and more confidence and we did some tacks and gybes for practice.
Also, Martin and his two friends apparently used the time to seek out some potential issues to be resolved as long as GOLUX is still in Germany. One for example was to try out different attachment points for the Jib sheets at the sail´s clew, another was to thoroughly check backstay trim and tension to the mast when sailing on different wind courses.
Unfortunately GOLUX will not sail to Seattle by herself. It´s a matter of time of course but also a major thing to sail a yacht through the Atlantic Ocean, passing Panama Canal and up the US west coast to round Vancouver Island passing Victoria and into Puget Sound down to Seattle. A dream trip, for sure, or, as I joke, why not choose the Northwest-Passage for a little short cut? If there was a boat perfectly capable of doing this, she´s the one for sure!
But as usual, even with these two guys making their dream come becoming reality, the true millionaire does not necessarily have a lot of bucks – he needs to have a lot of minutes. I am sure that this is the true currency when it comes to making dreams come true. Yeah, sure, money is always a big thing, but having the time to do all this stuff, this is where almost all are having serious problems. But, as the two assure me, GOLUX will see the ice, she will float in crystal clear coral reef-waters and she will do all the adventures she is destined to. But not now …
Tweaking: Shakedown practice
For now, GOLUX will undergo a thorough trials program and even though the owner states that she was finished and ready to go at „97 per cent“, as he puts it, there´s still a lot to do. Electronics, on-board electric, some unfinished furniture and the usual teething troubles every new boat has.
We start to head down south again towards Kiel Bay. Martin takes the helm and he is seemingly happy with GOLUX´ performance. I can put away my camera for a quarter of an hour and helm the yacht myself as well. As we still have some pretty moderate winds with occasional gusts, I found that there was surprisingly high pressure on the rudders. I ask Martin about the reason: Sailing upwind (and now with a reef in the main sail as well) the whole meticulously calculated center of effort is basically messed up: It´s diverted more aft and much lower. And this in turn is perceptible at the helm.
Later, much more inside the Kiel Bay where the wind died almost down, we will be taking out the Genoa and shaking out the reef in the main as well: And just instantly, as the boat´s rigging returned to the calculated most advantageous center of effort, the whole feel at the helm is much smoother and the pressure felt on the rudders is but gone.
Before I could sense this myself, whilst sailing back into Kiel Bay, a rain shower poured down onto the Baltic Sea in our wake. A shiny double rainbow proudly formed abaft, making us smile once again: If now only two Dolphins would appear and jump, this would have made the corny clicheé perfect. But you know what? It was perfect indeed!
This is a happy boat!
I´ve seldom sailed on a boat that smooth, that silent (no clunking, no noise, no banging, no smashing, no squeaking … no nothing!) and that perfectly well than this one. I may be biased, I know, because a Berckemeyer is untouchably on top of my „Dear Santa“-list for sure, but even that subjectiveness aside, GOLUX is pure joy!
I can only congratulate the owners for their decision. Not only to go for a Berckemeyer, but also for their little and big individual decisions. Apart from the color choices (the boat is kept in a white/grey color scheme, the most colorful aspect of the yacht is the American flag at her transom, really …) she is truly almost near perfect! The layout, the rigging, the sails and all those tiny details. When did I start to follow her fabrication process? Tw years ago? The owners tell me, it started well before Covid …
Now, that´s an Odyssey of almost five years! And you may ask now, if it is worth it. Well, that depends on the very individual use case, life plans and various other factors of course. But seeing just how nicely, how perfect this yacht has turned out to be in the end – even taking into account the list of still to correct faults – I´d say yes! This is a ship. Not a boat. It´s a ship. Made to last one, surely more, lifetime.
Custom versus production boat
As we sail into the Kiel Bay, just shortly before the end of the inlet, where the big cruise ships use to spit out their thousands of package tourists, slowly loosing speed as the wind dies down by the minute, we start to talk about exactly this one big question. And since the answer might be different for anyone how asks this question, surely a custom made yacht like this Berckemeyer will always be superior to any production boat no matter what.
It´s funny, because apparently, one of these two cruise ships (a small barge is seen at her side) is pumping out black water as we pass by. A disgusting smell of the feces of thousands of people. At the same time, on the other ship, the ship´s galleys are apparently going full speed, preparing dinner buffets. So a tempting odor of delicious fried food is joining this interesting, disgusting, tasty orgy of smells. I find that´s a nice allegory on this very question. The good and the bad, often not so far apart, often not even separable. My answer to that question, however, is clear!
As we moored GOLUX in Kiel-Schilksee an hour later, the sun already coming down, I am sure that a yacht like this is worth waiting for. She is an absolute dream yacht and am so happy for these two likeable, gorgeous, open and welcoming two owners. I really hope they take their BM50 to all these great places we all dream about, I wish them all the best, fair winds, a lucky ship and friendly ship´s cobold! Leaving Kiel, deeply satisfied, I sit in my car and smile all the way back to Luebeck where I live. That was quite a great experience.
As well interesting and related articles:
Meeting GOLUX for the first time: In the shipyard
Sailing with Martin Menzner on PIKE