The Meltem

The Amel Meltem was built by the Amel yard in La Rochelle, France from 1974 to 1979.

Henri Amel wanted to design the most practical – and most advanced – ocean going sailing yacht, yet easy to sail for a couple. The yard produced 51 Meltems between 1974 and 1979.

Meltem is the French word for the Meltemi winds in Greece. All models built by Amel were named after winds.

The Meltem, at 16m long, was a big step up for the yard and was by far the biggest yacht at the time. The other models, Kirk and Euros, were at 11.35m and 12m.

The result was a beauty. But she nearly bankrupted the yard. It was too expensive to build.

Amel Yachts

The following boats have become legends: the Mango, the Maramu, the Sharki, the Fango, the Santorin, and ultimately the Super Maramu, a cult boat produced at nearly 500 units. That success was followed by the 54, the 55, and ultimately the 50 and the 60.

It is interesting the new Amel 50 and Amel 60 have gone back to the design of the Meltem with a regular shaft (and no longer the custom C drive that needed meticulous care from its owners), a solid bimini covering the cockpit and not canvas), and large windows on each side.

Over the years the owners of Super Maramus and 54s had tweaked their cockpit covers, adding a solid one.

Look careful at the designs of cockpits of the Meltem, the 55, and the 50 and you will understand what I say.

Let’s start with the deck/layout:

Ketch rig: granted it is not a very performing sail but there are a lot of pluses, such as:

• The mizzen boom is super useful to hoist items such as an outboard engine (with a block at the end of boom), a dinghy (with the spare halyard); it is also where you mount the antennas (GPS or 4G) or the radar dome.

• The center cockpit is a fantastic design and timeless, why?

The cockpit sole is very low and is in fact the cover of the engine room. Other designs from Beneteau and Jeanneau are built for charters with two double cabins aft. They need to be high enough to get in and out of the beds. When you build a center cockpit on the top of it, you are positioned to high and subject to rolling and pitching.

• The wheel is on port, out of the way. Anybody who is a serious cruisers and covers miles knows that you are on autopilot all the time. What is the need to have a massive wheel in the middle or even worse TWO wheels. I used to race big boats where of course you steer all the time.

The access to the engine compartment is superb, from a massive hatch used as the cockpit sole. No more crawling to change the oil filter, the watermaker membranes, the water pump of the generator. The Meltem is even provided with an other entrance, from a door in the navigator’s cabin.

The cockpit is well protected from the elements (wind, waves and sun) by a massive solid bimini. I still don’t understand why people buy sailboats with an unprotected cockpit and a wheel way aft. They end up building a solid bimini and a lot of canvas to go all the way aft. Sometimes it looks amateurish or rickety, like everything built AFTER.

The driver seat is comfy, well sheltered and the view 380 degrees. And you are dry.

In the cokpit there is room for TWO seatees long enough to accomodate a lot of friends coming for drinks or two people who want to sleep outside at anchor or underway (a great way to not be far from the driver). Don’t forget that the cockpit is covered, so you won’t have the dew you are used when sleeping under the stars.

Our Meltem has additional amenities such as a big windvane mounted on a starboard pole. That pole has been outfitted with a crane and blocks leading the line to the electric winch. You can lift large people, large kegs of beers, groceries, an outboard, etc.

The liferaft is in a crate modified to be integrated in the lifelines so it can be launched to the outside without lifting it.

At the risk of ruffling some feathers this Meltem is not outfitted with the traditional main and mizzen furlers you see on other Amel. First of all, and even though they look simple, those electric furlers are not easy to maintain. If you have been around Amels you know that Amel owners spend a considerable amount of time dismantling those motors: they get corroded with salt, they get stuck, they break. Sometimes the main remains stuck in the mast (possible to solve that problem) or stuck outside (that is a scary thought because it just happen when the wind is building up). They get stuck because the vertical battens get stuck (the shape of the sail is ugly, so the vertical batten are – as sailmakers say – supposed to improve the bag shape. Or they get stuck because you did not keep enough tension in the outhaul, or too much.

This Meltem is equipped with tried and true lazy jacks systems on both the main and the mizzen. The main is also set up with continuous reefing leading back to the cockpit where you will find more modern controls (spinlock blockers and a massive electric Harken 900 winch) for the reefing lines, the main halyard.

The main traveller has also been changed to a massive garhaer traveler bolted in front of the cabin, with a solid vang.

The only electric furler if for the genoa where a Profurl does a great job (but if that fails you can still roll the genoa with a regular winch handle, simple!).

Talking about heavy weather the is a second baby stay that was installed when the mast was changed (it was replaced with a taller Sparcraft and two sets of spreaders). This is where you use the small jib or the strom jib, using just hanks (that won’t break) and jib sheets leading inside the rigging.

In light weather we use a bowsprit where you set an asymetrical spinnaker / Code 0 mounted a Selden furler.

The four lockers at the bow house the sail bags and the spare anchors and lines. Mounted in a traditional way above the deck they remain dry inside.

The Lofrans Tigres 1500W windlass is there to hoist that massive 40kg Rocna anchor and 100 meters of 10 mm chain.

The cockpit lockers are big enough to absorb a deflated dinghy, an outboard, 125 liters black holding tanks, gas can and oil for the outboard, spare docking lines, emergency tiller, you name it, you can feed ANYTHING in those monsters.