Tigoulou
Tigoulou — particulars
S/Y Tigoulou
Wrightson Bi-Loup 102
Length: 10.20 metres (33ft)
Hull: GRP twin-keel monohull
Built: 1985
Refitted: 2011. Modernised for blue-water sailing: 2018–2019
Home port: LMAC, La Mivoie, Mauritius
It took around six weeks getting Tigoulou ready.
She needed everything checked, cleaned, organised, repacked, and in many places repaired. I learned the boat by attending to her and opening every locker, checking every piece of equipment, and sailing to a few closer spots around the West coast. By the time we left Black River on the 26th of April, I knew her well as I could…the small floating house.
She is a Wrightson Bi-Loup 102 , a French 33ft cruising yacht of a particular and now slightly old-fashioned kind. Built in 1985, refitted in 2011, when her previous owner took her on. Modernised for blue-water sailing in 2018 and 2019, with new electronics, updated rigging, and other small adjustments, she turned from a coastal cruiser into something capable of crossing kilometres of open ocean.
What makes the Bi-Loup unusual is the bottom. Instead of the single fin keel most yachts of her size carry, she sits on two keels, asymmetric, canted outwards to provide lift when she heels, and short enough that she can dry out upright on a sandbar at low tide. The twin keels give her a steadiness in calm waters, a predictable motion in choppy waters, and the small but practical gift of being beachable. Tigoulou can settle onto sand and sit up on her own legs while the tide goes out around her. We practiced this when we needed to clean the bottom of her and rid her of barnacles before we left. We beached her in the shallow waters of the Le Morne lagoon, right in front of Benetiers Island.
Inside, Tigoulou had, what the French called a bateau à pont-saloon, a deck-saloon yacht (the deck saloon is one of the loveliest features of the Bi-Loup design), with large panoramic windows raised up into the coachroof so that the people inside could see out without going on deck. In a small boat in heavy weather, this turns out to matter enormously. You can keep watch from below. You can read the wind by the way the light moves on the water. In the Indian Ocean’s hot afternoons, these windows let the trade winds through.
Tigoulou had a spacious vee-berth forward, where I slept. A small galley with a gas stove, a fridge, and a compact stacking of cupboards. A central saloon and dining area which, with a crew of three, is tight but comfortable when sailing and busy at meals. A small navigation station.
In terms of speed, she is not fast. In light air she is slow enough that you need to turn on the engine (apparently it’s due to the extra wetted surface of two keels, which is a drag-tax you pay for everything else she gives you).
The crossing from Mauritius (Port Louis) to L’île du Sud took sixty hours — Mauritius to Saint Brandon at the start of the south-east trade-wind season. We left from Port Louis after clearing formalities, set our course northeast, and lost the signal of land for the first time off Flat Island.
The sea on the way out was rough enough that I could not sleep at all for the first night, on the avomine sleepiness, in the front cabin, disorientated by the permanent groaning of a hull on its side, the wind, the water bumping along the strake. 40km’s out from the islands, the wind died. We had to turn on the engine. We arrived at L’île du Sud after dark, 2 days later with only the house light of the men at the base camp visible across the lagoon. I stood on the stern with a torch, looking for the anchoring buoy, and could not find it. We slept where we lay. But, I woke up to beauty.
I did not come home on her (and that’s a different story). With her, the experience was unforgettable and I am grateful, in a way I do not entirely know how to express, for what she was and how she behaved.
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