Aluminum and long-distance cruising have been coastal brothers for decades, not only in the monohull sector, but now in the catamaran sector. This is normal, given that the backwaters leading there are not always mapped, and pushing ice floes in high latitudes or tree trunks up tropical rivers is part of the daily life of these ocean 4x4s. These inopportune encounters with unidentified floating objects, which result in a few dips and bumps at the waterline of an aluminum hull, can be much more damaging on other materials, even if the counterpart of protection against electrolysis is not to be neglected. There remains one problem to manage, that of beaching and putting the boat in dry dock: with a centerboard or ballasted centerboard, there must be no roughness where the hull rests, otherwise it will be pierced, which means inspecting the seabed carefully beforehand, which is not always feasible (muddy, icy waters, currents).
L'Iroise 48: Go far and long
