ANDRILLOT RETURN OF THE FIRST VERTUE

After many years of father-and-son cruising, the first ever of the legendary class has been restored, again for a father and son

- NIC COMPTON

It’s 380 miles from Dartmouth, England, to Vlissingen, Holland, by the coastal route. It’s a routine enough passage for many British sailors cruising in Holland, or for Dutch and German sailors cruising the UK. But it’s also long enough to be filled with drama, as Uli Killer found when he sailed his new acquisition Andrillot ‘up-Channel’ home to Germany.

“We had all the time strong winds,” he says. “The forecast was always for 10 knots, and we always had more than 20 knots. It was a hard job on the tiller sometimes with the boat going downwind and big waves following. The boat was always wanting to slide across the waves, not go straight through. We sailed through the inner passage at Portland Bill, and the water was like a whirlpool. Suddenly out of nowhere there was a big thunderstorm, with lightning strikes. It was fantastic, very dramatic. Next day, passing the Needles just before the Isle of Wight, it was wind against tide. There was such a strong current, the water was churning and was so choppy, then some waves came over the stern.”

Even the planned stop at Lymington to meet the previous owner didn’t quite go to plan, as Uli and his son Moritz were awoken in the middle of the night by another yacht crashing into them.

“You can’t imagine the noise it makes when something crashes into you at night,” says Uli. “You wake up so suddenly and imagine the whole boat is destroyed.”