Originally Claude Graf wanted to build a yacht for himself and for his friends but they ended up building 10 or 11 boats instead.
The design draws inspiration from Mediterranean Xebecs with a sturdy bowsprit and long overhang in the aft. This type of ship was especially popular with Barbary coast pirates after the 18th century. Etymology of the name seems to refer to Arabic origin and translates roughly to “small warship”.
The process to create these boats was not easy. There’s an interesting article about chebecs (in french). Rough google translation here, bit of broken English but gives you the general idea of the obstacles they had to overcome.
From what I’ve managed to gather the chebecs are as follows. There are some contradictions with my list and the article above so this is probably not fully correct.
No.1 – Hérisson – Brittany, France
No.2 – Chebec – Sweden/Finland (Originally Spoerry’s )
No.3 – Chevy – Sunken (Possible insurance fraud mentioned in the linked article above)
No.4 – Lady of the sea – Port Frejus, France Facebook link
No.5 – La Brouette – Spain
No.6 – Dernier Tango – Arcachon, France
No.7 – Moody Blue – Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal
No.8 – Taos – Port Grimaud, France (Originally Claude Graff’s)
No.9 – Charlie the Bird – Barcelona, Spain Instagram link
No.10 – Akimbo –
Charlie the Bird is famous from being in the movie Voyage American (See Wiki & Voyage American -youtube sailing scene).
Hull no. 8 was Claude Grafs personal chebec Taos Brett IV, later named Taos
