Hauled up for a lunchtime break on a beach on the Île d’Arz in France’s Gulf of Morbihan are, from left to right: the Michael Storer–designed Goat Island Skiff EPIK, the François Vivier–designed Silmaril TRUK 2, the Grand Silmaril VITAE BREVIS, and the Silmaril KERELEN 4. VITAE BREVIS’s builder, Emmanuel Conrath, scaled up the Silmaril design by 10 percent, with Vivier’s blessing, to create the Grand Silmaril.
Four boats were tacking through the fog when I arrived at Arradon, in Brittany, on the northwest coast of France. Four brown sails and one white, all lug-rigged, faded in and out of view as they were swallowed up and then re-emerged out of the haze. It looked mysterious and strangely timeless, as if I’d just stumbled across a bunch of 16th-century smugglers waiting to load their contraband.