Tosca

The rowing-and-sailing boat "Tosca" is a reproduction of a boat designed and built in St Petersburg around 1905 by Alexander Petrovich Fan-der-Flit (1870–1941), a distinguished Russian engineer and mechanical scientist.

Fan-der-Flit designed the boat to be easy to handle, stable and safe. It was intended both for recreational boating and as a training boat for beginners learning to sail.

The boat was traditionally built from larch wood. In use, the original design lived up to all expectations. Over time, however, boatbuilders began making their own alterations and gradually departed from the original plans and specifications. As a result, the boat lost some of its distinctive qualities.

In 1940, a group of boat designers in Leningrad restored Fan-der-Flit’s original design and named the reconstructed version "Fofan". The "Tosca" was later built using a copy of these restored drawings.

The Tosca type was conceived by the French company Voile & Aviron.

Voile & Aviron was started in 2006 by Didier Merien who, having worked for many years in the fishing industry in France and the United States, decided to make his passion for sailing a business when, in the early 2000s, he noted a lack of traditional wooden crafts at obtainable prices. Voile & Aviron was based in Didier’s hometown of Larmor Plage in Brittany and worked closely with a couple of shipyards in Lithuania (Morigan and subsequently Amber Boat) that built beautiful small craft.

Voile & Aviron received their first boats at the beginning of 2006. The goal of Voile & Aviron was to build small boats with very high quality workmanship at a reasonable price.  Every detail of the boats was looked at in the traditional manner.

In 2007 Voile & Aviron presented its boats at the Grand Pavois in La Rochelle and at the Paris Boat Show end of November2007.

The Tosca was first built in 2010.

Tosca Specifications:

Length : 4.5 meters
Beam : 1.6 meters
Sails : Main one jib.
Rig : Gunter
Main Sail area : 10 m²
Jib Sail area : 2 m²
Hull Wood : Larch, Clinker built
Draught : 0,25 m
Mast height : 5 m

Pivoting Rudder and centreboard in steel; mast boom and yard in wood.