Design and Construction
Alubat built both the hull and deck from welded aluminum, maintaining the yard’s all-metal approach rather than using a composite deck structure. The hull is aluminum, while the keel is iron. This lifting centerboard arrangement gives the boat a draft of roughly 1.8 feet loaded with the board raised and about 6.7 feet with it lowered.
That versatility lies at the heart of the design: the Ovni 35 can enter shallow marinas yet stand up to ocean passages. Her 11-foot-10-inch beam produces a length-to-beam ratio of 3.06, making her moderately beamy for the era. A 41 percent ballast ratio—4,850 pounds of iron on an 11,905-pound displacement—points to a stiff, purposeful little cruiser rather than a lightweight racer.
Rig and Handling
The Ovni 35 carries a masthead sloop rig with 756.7 square feet of working sail area in the mainsail and jib combined. Her theoretical hull speed is 7.2 knots, while the wetted surface is about 398 square feet. That is modest for her length and helps the shallow-board configuration move efficiently. The 28.5-foot waterline underpins a comfortable motion in a seaway.
The surviving sail-handling specifications are unusually complete for a period design record. The jib and genoa sheets are each 36.1 feet long and 14 mm in diameter. The mainsheet is 90.2 feet long at the same diameter, and the spinnaker sheet measures 79.4 feet.
An immersion rate of 1,175 pounds per inch means the Ovni 35 loads heavily for her size, a function of the aluminum structure and ballast.
Accommodations
The available record provides no descriptive interior details beyond the aluminum construction and stated dimensions, so the living space can only be judged from the boat’s envelope: 36 feet 9 inches of length, nearly 12 feet of beam, and a 5,300-pound ballast-displacement margin.
As on all lifting-keel Ovnis, the centerboard trunk necessarily intrudes on the saloon floor. Even so, the beamy proportions represented by the 3.06 length-to-beam ratio suggest a roomy midsection consistent with the yard’s cruising intent.
Verdict
The Ovni 35 is a serious aluminum voyager in a manageable size. Briand’s early-eighties hull combines a shallow-draft centerboard with a stiff, beamy aluminum body. Its complete, well-documented rig specifications should also make re-rigging straightforward for an owner.
She isn’t a floating apartment—the available documentation says nothing about creature comforts—but as a go-anywhere, shallow-draft sloop, the design is coherent and purposeful.
Pros
- Welded aluminum hull and deck from a dedicated aluminum yard
- Lifting iron centerboard provides a 1.8–6.7 ft draft range for marina and offshore use
- Complete sheet and rig dimensions documented for the masthead sloop
- Stiff 41% ballast ratio on an 11,905 lb displacement
Cons
- Keel type is unknown beyond its iron construction
