Jump to: Story • Manufacture & Design • Cups & Class History • Layout & Specs • Previous Owners • Current Refit & Upgrades
Story
I was born small and sure-footed, a 26-foot Écume de Mer with a stubborn streak and a taste for clean breeze. They named me Skellig after the wind-washed rocks off Ireland, and the name fit. My first keeper sailed like people read—slowly, every page turned. We learned sandbanks and river moorings at twilight, with pencil notes on the bulkhead: leave on the last of the ebb; reef early; don’t show off.
My next chapter wanted speed: a carnival spinnaker, crisp sheets, the hiss of a fast reach. After that came a family—tiny shoes on cockpit seats, a soft toy in the quarter berth, jam fingerprints on the companionway—and my cockpit learned laughter. Now I’m with Dominick: tools, tidy looms, and that boatyard hope measured in sandpaper grits and cups of coffee. We reef earlier when the Channel gets opinionated, test electrics, chase rattles, and come home with salt on a grin and a list for the next round.
Manufacture & Design
Designer: Jean-Marie Finot (Groupe Finot). Prototype: aluminium by Huisman (Netherlands). Series production: GRP c. 1969/70–1980, primarily by Chantiers Mallard (France), with licensed builds also seen in Japan and Holland. Total produced: approximately 1,350–1,385 hulls across the run.
The Écume de Mer combined a modern (for its day) fin keel with a skeg-hung rudder and a lively, forgiving hull form. It became a gateway racer-cruiser: stiff enough to carry canvas in a breeze, light enough to sparkle in club races, and simple enough to maintain without a yard bill that makes you wince.
Cups & Class History
The design’s record
The Écume de Mer is an IOR Quarter-Ton icon: Quarter Ton Cup winner in 1970 and again in 1972 (the soft-chined variant Petite Fleur took the ’72 title). The class was also selected for the 1978 Tour de France à la Voile. These honours belong to the design/class, not automatically to any individual hull.
This hull (Skellig)
Skellig (Écume de Mer, 26ft) has raced in the ISORA scene while based at Pwllheli, per previous-owner records, and has competed in local coastal races. We’re compiling confirmed results and podiums for this specific hull. If you raced aboard Skellig or have series sheets/programmes, please email webmaster@projectgomad.com.
Note: race archives also show a different yacht named Skellig (a Feeling 346 at Sussex YC) with documented wins in the mid-2000s—this is a different boat from our 26-ft Écume de Mer.
Layout & Specs
Typical interior: saloon with galley and chart table to port; dinette (converts to a double) and a quarter berth to starboard; forward vee-berth with the heads and a hanging locker just aft. Saloon headroom around 5’7” / 1.70 m depending on coachroof/year.
| Hull type | Fin keel, skeg-hung rudder |
| Rig | Masthead sloop |
| LOA | ~26.0 ft (7.92 m) |
| LWL | ~19.3 ft (5.87 m) |
| Beam | ~8.75 ft (2.67 m) |
| Draft | ~5.0 ft (1.52 m) |
| Displacement | ~4,000 lb (1,814 kg) |
| Ballast | ~1,610 lb (730 kg) |
Previous Owners
- Owner #1 (Year–Year):
❒ Name/Club • Somewhere in Ireland - Owner #2 (Year–Year):
❒ Name/Club • Abersoch - Owner #3 (Year–Year):
❒ Name/Club • Portishead - Current owner (Dominick, Year–present):
❒ Name/Club • Edinburgh (Scotland), Royal Forth Yacht Club.
❒ Preparing for solo passage challenges (Jester 2026 hopefully).
Current Refit & Upgrades
- Electrics: harness tidy + labelled looms; new terminals; corrosion audit.
- Electronics: Almost everything has or is being replaced.
- Rig & deck: early reef habit; fresh running rigging; hardware inspection; new tell-tales. Loads to do and replaced. Youtube videos coming!
- Safety: grab-bag basics; new harness; sea safety liferaft; PLB; ePRIB; bilge & pumps sanity.
- To-do: sails service; deck hardware refresh; cosmetics as time and tides allow.
Small, seaworthy, and full of fingerprints—that’s Skellig. If you’ve sailed aboard her, or have old race sheets with her name in the margins, I’d love to add them here: webmaster@projectgomad.com.