We had some early correspondence with Christian Simonnot and learned that he lives in Sollies-pont France. Here is a portion of an E-mail from early 2006. We edited it a bit for clarity.

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Solliès-pont is located at 20 km in the north-west of La londe.

I think that the boat crossed the Atlantic under a cargo liner, the preceding owner had imported it. It was registered in France in 1963 at Saint Mandrier (in the bay of Toulon) under the name Grindel.

My grandfather bought the boat from the first owner in 1976 in Saint Mandrier (my father thinks that the first owner was English or American). Grandfather sailed around Hyeres island, Corse, and sometime Baleares Island and Spain.

When I was a young boy I spent a lot of summer holidays on Grindel with my Grandfather. Later, I sailed with my parents and now I sail with my wife and son.

At first GRINDEL had a inboard engine (Volvo-Penta MD5), since 2002 she is equiped with 8 HP 4 stroke Yamaha outboard located in the transom. In 1976 my Grandfather installed a "home made" roller furlling jib made with wood and bronze (in 1994 we replaced wood with aluminum section). We removed liston(?) and changed all the port-holes. The "boom" was also replaced, but it is like original.

Salutations,
Christian