16’ Vivier Ebihen 16 Sailing Dinghy (2025) - KIRI

Kiri is an Ebihen 16 designed by François Vivier and built by me over the last two years. She is almost entirely built with paulownia (another name is Kiri – hence the boat name) including the masts and spars.

Paulownia is a very light hardwood at about 260 kg/m3 and is lovely to work with. It is fairly soft and dents easily, so all surfaces have been epoxied to harden them.

The masts and spars are also paulownia, but strengthened with longitudinal strips of fibreglass.

I have installed an electric pod motor as auxiliary power. The 150 amp hour batteries will move it along at about 6 knots for about 3 hours.

The four 12v batteries sit either side of the centreboard box and including the steel centreboard, there is almost 220kg of ballast at that position.

I have also deviated from the original design and built a kick up rudder, which works better than I expected.

Launch day was on 26th October on Myall Quays in Tea Gardens, NSW. I hope to be sailing in Port Stephens and on the Myall Lakes soon. I am currently still making the mizzen mast and spars so sailing is only with the main at the moment.

Unfortunately I will now have to sell my aft mast Scruffie Scintilla to make room.