Why choose an aluminium centerboard?

From Polynesian voyaging canoes to Viking longships to Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria, human beings have not been sat around waiting for the aluminium centreboarder. Yet over the past half-century it has become the boat of choice for many sailors setting off to go cruising around the world.

It’s a kind of perfect balance between function and material. Between steel (too heavy) and polyester (too fragile on impact), it’s attractive because of its excellent strength to weight ratio. Better still, not only does its ability to absorb shock by deformation avoid transforming any encounter with a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object) into a drama, it allows you to beach your boat gently wherever you want, but it also allows for developing hull forms as pleasant as they are efficient. With a bit of time and a lot of know-how, Allures boats are the proof that we can do away with the common, angular, chined hulls of the seventies, and offer a hull shape with irreproachable elegance and finish.

And because, thanks to aluminium, you can take the ground without thinking about it, sailing in lagoons here you can walk ashore is also tempting. Choosing a centreboard boat is then essential. Beyond the pleasure described above, it also helps to increase the on-Board safety by offering the possibility of sheltering closer to the shoreline, even to take the ground, deep in the mangroves during the passage of a cyclone. This is a true story, and the boat came out absolutely unscathed. Further offshore, with the board raised, the boat slides down the face of the biggest waves, instead of being dragged into a broach by the opposing forces exerted by sails full of wind on one side, and the keel acting like a brake in the water, on the other. All in a smooth movement unimaginable on any other type of boat because of the perfect balance of weight and low hydrodynamic drag. And since aluminium is maintenance-free, you will really have the time to enjoy it.