Kika is a Rival 38 built in 1976 by Southern Boat Builders.
It was an exhibit at the London boat show which meant that they did the joinery
well. She is an aft cockpit long keeled Bermudan sloop and was well laid up
because in those days they worried about osmosis. She is a comfortable medium
to heavy displacement good sea boat. This means she is fine in a storm,
reverses like a pig because of her long keel, and does an average speed of
about 6 knots.
The previous owner, Nick Ager, had just completed a
circumnavigation when I brought her. He knew her inside out and had got rid of
many of the glitches. Since then we’ve been sailing her around the Irish Sea
for three years, gradually upgrading a few systems, and learning what goes
wrong.
The plan was originally to do a complete circumnavigation.
However the piracy situation in the Indian Ocean means that either you have to
go around the Cape of Good Hope and back to Brazil before going home (a very
long way) or put her on a container ship from India to the Mediterranean at a
cost of over £20k, which my mate Clive Sparkes will be doing with his boat
Sephina an Oyster 43, but only because he wants to eventually live aboard in
the Mediterranean.
We have decided to take the old clipper route from New
Zealand to South America using the prevailing Westerly winds to the North of
Antarctica. It’s a bit remote but my son Tom is up for that leg because he
fancies the challenge of the Southern ocean. Kika is a strong boat and should
stand up to it but there is nobody there if you get into trouble.
My friend Colin Sharrat and I will be the nucleus crew but
hopefully loads of ne’er do well friends and family will fly out to do various
legs as Kika can comfortably accommodate four people at sea.
Over the next few blogs I will try and cover some of the
issues of getting a 38’ boat ready for a long voyage. There seem to be no ideal
solutions, only compromises, depending on how your budget stretches, the number
of high tech home comforts you want on board, the number of spares you want on
board, and one's own ability to fix things.
There is also the question of acquiring new skills; diesel
mechanics, electrics, GRP and sail repairs, languages especially Spanish, cookery beyond spaghetti bolognaise, and astro-navigation.
I suppose it’s the old story of being jack of all trades and
master of none, but leaving on time in August 2013 regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment