First let us say, in case you can’t tell from all these blog entries, that we adore our boat. Buying and moving aboard our new Selene 53 was the best thing we’ve ever done. It seemed like a wild move at the time, since we’d never owned a boat and had to sell our home in order to afford her. But we loved the cruising life, and Pax Nautica, even more than we had originally anticipated.
When we first set out, our aim was coastal cruising of Pacific North and Central America. We figured we’d want to enjoy traveling further afield, but planned on yacht transport (where you ship your boat aboard a bigger carrier) to get us across big oceans to the Mediterranean or the South Pacific. Certainly, Pax is fully capable of handling an ocean crossing. But we weren’t up for it.
Then, with three years of local cruising in Southern California’s Channel Islands and environs under our belt, along with a season in Mexico, we got inspired to plan a crossing to the Marquesas in the South Pacific. Our friends John and Kathy, on their Selene 53 Mystic Moon, intend to make that voyage in the spring of 2013 and we decided to join them. We were very excited about it. It was to be our big ocean crossing, then we’d be back to our comfortable coastal cruising again… someplace or other.
But as time and engine hours have continued to march on, we’ve found ourselves growing more and more ambitious about where we’d like to go in our boat. Southeast Asia sounds so enticing, and Stan keeps talking about exploring the Chilean fjords.
For years, we’ve been following the progress of cruising yacht designer Steve Dashew. After several successful sailboat designs, he and his wife Linda turned their focus toward power as a means of continuing their offshore passagemaking as they got older. The result was Wind Horse: a power boat, but distinctly different from the traditional trawler style, both in appearance and in the way it handles itself at sea.
For those of you with an interest in boats, and in the details of what makes this boat so different, the best source is the web site
www.dashewoffshore.com
For the rest of you, I’ll just point out the most important considerations from our point of view:
1. Comfort at sea. The design of this hull is fundamentally different from the more traditional trawler style, allowing it to ‘pierce’ many of the waves instead of pitching up and down (hobby-horsing) as the bow rides over closely spaced waves or chop. The ride is much smoother and quieter, allowing you to move about more freely while underway in marginal conditions, bashing into head seas. Also great steering control as she surfs downwind in big seas. These features make a big difference, especially on long offshore passages.
2. Safety in heavy weather. In a worst-case scenario, a wave-induced capsize, this boat is self-righting, unlike a trawler. She also travels much faster, cruising at an average of 9.5 knots for a long passage, versus the 6 knots we had planned to make while crossing to the Marquesas on Pax Nautica. This is fast enough to actually avoid a lot of dangerous weather in the first place.
3. Ocean-crossing range. At 9.5 knots of speed, this boat has a 5000 nautical mile range, versus 2500 miles at 6 knots for Pax. This means we would not have to store extra fuel in ‘bladders’ on deck for long passages, which presents its own safety and logistics challenges.
After cruising 45,000 miles in the prototype, Wind Horse, the Dashews finally put the end result, the FPB 64, into production. At the time, we remarked: “If we were intending to travel offshore a lot, that might be the boat we’d want.”
At the end of March, Steve Dashew and the boat builder, Circa Marine, hosted a two-day open house in Whangarei, North Island, New Zealand, where hulls 3 and 4 were being splashed. A great opportunity for us to see the boat in action, get our questions answered, and maybe put the concept to bed so we could quit lurking the web site!
We arrived curious about whether we could ever picture ourselves living aboard this boat. Beauty and comfort in a living space is an absolute requirement, especially to Val. On the sea trial, we expected a more comfortable ride in the mild to moderate conditions in which we typically find ourselves while underway. But we were very skeptical that the difference in comfort in big, ugly seas would tip the scales. Being only miserable, as opposed to more miserable, does not warrant buying a new boat.
The answer to the first question turned out to be ‘yes.’ The exterior of the FPB looks somewhat different from Pax, doesn’t it? We’d no longer have people lined up on the dock to take each other’s pictures in front of our boat. But we actually like that military-industrial, workboat look, and the savings in time and money of maintaining an unpainted aluminum hull is appealing.
From an interior beauty standpoint, Pax wins hands-down. Her warm solid teak surfaces and lovely design details will be missed. The interior of the FPB is far more spare and minimalist, but also with a great layout and quite finely finished. And the 360 degree view through the 3/4 inch thick windows is truly eye-popping, both underway and at anchor.
For lots of photos of the FPB 64, both inside and out, watch the slide show at this link:
FPB 64 slide show
We couldn’t have asked for ‘better’ conditions for the sea trial. Gale force winds had been whipping up the seas for three days, resulting in nine to twelve foot waves spaced about five seconds apart. In other words, it was pure snot for two hours. Not conditions in which you would ever put yourself voluntarily, but sometimes one gets caught in unpredicted or unavoidable weather.
We were thoroughly stunned at how she handled herself… and those aboard her… in that sea state. I could have cooked dinner during that run. And I’m talking about a real meal, not a one-minute microwave reheat. In a Selene, a Nordhavn, or any other trawler type boat, one would just sit wedged into the pilot house, listening to the hull shuddering with the pounding of the waves, counting the minutes or hours until it was over.
But see for yourself if you like. Here is some video, thanks to Pete Rossin and Brian Rickard, of our sea trial aboard FPB #3, ‘Iron Lady.’ Video tends to shrink the way the waves look, but you will certainly get the idea. The video is nearly 7 minutes long.
In particular, note the contrast between the sea state outside, and the way everyone is relaxed, laughing and carrying on conversation inside.
So, what’s the schedule??
As of now, our plan is to summer our boat along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. From November to April, we plan to cruise Costa Rica and Panama, then make our way north into Mexico and summer the boat once again in the Puerto Vallarta area in 2012. In November of 2012, we will continue north, back into the U.S., complete some routine maintenance and minor repairs, and put Pax up for sale in San Diego in early 2013.
We take delivery on our new FPB 64 in Whangarei, New Zealand between February and April of 2013, in time to head out to the islands of the South Pacific for another season in the tropics.
And after that… who knows??
All we know is that… we’re all-in!
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