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| Yachtsnet's
archive of boat details and pictures |
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The following information and photographs are
displayed as a service to anyone researching yacht types. HOWEVER THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT ARE COVERED BY COPYRIGHT, AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF YACHTSNET LTD. Details and photographs
are normally based on one specific yacht, but could be a compilation.
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Feeling 1040 |
Brief details |
Builder |
Kirie Construction Nautiques, Les Sables d'Olonne, France |
The Feeling 1040 is a fast and spacious modern cruiser - Feeling being one of the first builders to use light-coloured timbers and veneers in modern production cruisers. The Feeling 1040 was built with a choice of single or twin aft cabins, and shallow or deep fin keels. The standard keels were iron, but it appears some boats may also have been built with lead keels. |
LOA |
35' 2" |
Sail area |
722 sq ft main and genoa |
LWL |
29' 2" |
Rig |
Sloop |
Beam |
11' 10" |
Cabins |
2 plus saloon |
Draught |
5' 11" or 4' 7" shallow keel |
Berths |
6-7 |
Displacement |
10,805 lbs |
Engine |
usually Volvo MD2002 or MD2003 diesel |
Ballast |
4,410 lbs |
BHP |
18 -27 |
Keel type |
Iron fin keel with spade rudder |
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Auguste Kirie was building boats in France from 1912 onwards, originally as a wooden boatbuilder. The 'Feeling' range came about in the early 1980s when the company received an injection of funding from the USA, and started to build more boats for the export market. An early Feeling 1040 was sailed from France to New York single handed, surviving hurricane weather, and was then exhibited at the New York Boat Show and went on to be awarded the 1985 American 'Boat of the Year' award.
The Feeling 1040 was designed by the Harle/Montain design office, and was built from around 1985 to 1989. In many ways the Feelings of this era were trend-setters, with a fast hull allied to a spacious and quite open interior, with light ash joinery - something most other builders did not introduce until many years later. The boat still looks modern today.
These early Feeling yachts such as the 940, 1040, 1090 etc., were built to quite a high quality level, though later the company merged with Kelt Yachts, another French builder who specialised in lift keel yachts, and started to build a later range of lift-keel Feelings that were rather more 'built down to a price'.
Although there are far fewer Feelings around than the competing Beneteaus, Jeanneaus and Bavarias, the Feelings are instantly recognisable by the row of code flags spelling FEELING as a graphic on the boot-top stripe. In 2008 "Sailing Today" magazine tested the Feeling 1040 in Force 5-6 - actually sailing the precise boat illustrated here - and reported that to windward "....this is a quick boat" and "As soon as we eased the sheets the Feeling 1040 took off. Even with full sail up she remained easy to control and responsive". Their verdict was "...fast enough to satisfy the racer while simple and safe enough for a family". |
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