Design and Construction
The Ovni 37 has a welded-aluminum hull. Alubat has built its boats entirely from 100 percent welded aluminum since 1973, using the material for the deck and coachroof as well as the hull rather than incorporating composite structures. The Ovni 37’s hull material is aluminium, while its keel is iron rather than lead or a cast bulb.
Alubat’s construction method provides context for this mid-1980s design: the yard precision-cuts marine-grade plates, then has master shipwrights hand-weld them inside and out.
With a length-to-beam ratio of 3.19 and a ballast ratio of 41 percent, the hull is moderately narrow for its length and carries a substantial fraction of its displacement low. Wetted surface is about 409 square feet. The immersion rate is 1,215 pounds per inch, meaning the boat sits deeply and resists being driven down by load.
Rig and Handling
The Ovni 37 carries a cutter rig, a versatile arrangement for offshore sailing. The running-rigging specifications give a sense of the sail plan’s working scale: the jib and genoa sheets are each about 37.7 feet long and 14 mm in diameter; the mainsheet is roughly 94 feet of 14 mm line; and the spinnaker sheet is about 83 feet long at the same diameter. These measurements also provide a baseline when replacing the running rigging.
Draft is shallow and varies with load, ranging from 1.80 to 2.10 feet. This variable draft is a hallmark of the lifting-keel concept Alubat pioneered with the Ovni 28 in 1978. The theoretical maximum speed for a displacement hull of this length is 7.3 knots, setting the upper bound for sustained passage performance.
Accommodations and Cruising Capacity
The immersion rate and wetted surface imply a volume-bearing hull suited to loaded cruising. No further interior or accommodation details are available in the specifications presented here.
Known Issues and Refit Information
The available information states that the boat was built with an iron keel and an aluminum hull. Beyond that specification, no issue or refit details are provided.
Verdict
The Ovni 37 is a mid-1980s Philippe Briand design, built in welded aluminum by Alubat. Its iron lifting keel and shallow, load-dependent draft suit gunkholing and shoal-water cruising.
Its specifications—a 41 percent ballast ratio, a 3.19 length-to-beam ratio, 409 square feet of wetted surface, and an immersion rate of 1,215 pounds per inch—describe a deeply loaded, moderately narrow cruiser. The theoretical top speed is 7.3 knots, while the cutter rig and documented sheet lengths frame a traditional offshore sail plan.
Pros
- All-aluminum welded construction by an established French yard
- Shallow, load-variable draft of 1.80 to 2.10 feet from an iron lifting keel
- Cutter rig suited to short-handed or offshore sailing
- Strong 41 percent ballast ratio for stability
Cons
- No interior, issue, or refit information beyond bare specifications
- Iron keel rather than a corrosion-resistant alternative, according to the built specification