Classic Carabela III Class IOR

It is not easy nowadays to find a classic boat with a single owner: the one who commissioned its construction back in the day and who has taken care of it throughout its life. The Avalot is precisely this. Its owner sought a sporty yet livable design, and the I.O.R. formula of that time provided exactly what he was looking for. Sparkman & Stephens, whom he first approached, seemed excessively expensive, while Don Pye, who had just separated from Kim Holman, offered him a beautiful design for a fraction of that budget. Nick Cañeres and Pablo Medina took care of the construction, and the entire structure speaks of their craftsmanship. The interior style of the boat, very typical of Carabela, may seem a bit dark to us today, but it retains all the elegance of the first moment and surprises with the contrast of such a sporty deck, dominated by self-tailing winches for each maneuver. Those were times when a racing boat did not have to be necessarily uncomfortable or spartan. Times when, after winning the winter championship races, one could go cruising with family without giving up the comfort and luxury of a cozy interior equipped with everything. This lasted until the mid-Eighties, when aluminum prototypes and fractional rigs put an end to the formula. Don Pye had very recently left his partnership with Kim Holman when the future owner of the Avalot inquired about the plans and their price. The agreement was reached easily, and Carabela completed the construction in a year and a half, launching the boat in Barcelona at the dock in front of the Real Club Náutico. As we have said, the construction is typical of Nick Cañeres and Pablo Medina of the time: Laminated frames and beams, joined beneath the deck by plywood camber curves. Steel reinforcements in the most stressed areas and a large steel mast step. The Samanguila mahogany planking is also laminated with three layers. The mast and boom are made of Sitka spruce, considered the best material for this. The lead keel is bolted to a wooden and steel structure that supports the load. A type of construction made to last. The deck features the typical layout, then very innovative, of a cockpit with a spardeck before the entrance. This gave height to the aft cabin, which returned to being the owner's cabin, as it had traditionally been. The maneuvering is distributed among several winches, and the helmsman only has to think about the course. Inside, space is not lacking anywhere, even by modern standards. The kitchen is spacious, the salon is spacious, and the chart table is spacious. Two comfortable and well-equipped cabins for stowage and two washbasins of correct dimensions complete a picture in which nothing is missing. Here and there, the need for some aesthetic intervention is noticeable, to fix small defects in the plywood of the bulkheads. Along with some small leaks that are easy to fix, these are the only minor flaws that slightly tarnish a very attractive whole. The engine is in very good condition, with few hours of use, as are the sails. The Avalot has all the paperwork to be a protagonist in the classic regattas in the new I.O.R. classics division. For cruising, its comfort knows no limits, like the good boats of its time.