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Alex sailing “Duende” past St Kitts and Nevis, January 2012 from taru tuomi on Vimeo. A great video from The World Tour. I’ve heard that they have the most popular sailing blog in the world. Nice! Somehow I didn’t make the list, what the … is that about. Still have their HR352 for sale as well. Now listed at $73,000. One of those was just listed at $114,000 at a marina near me in the frozen north. It is no longer listed so I am assuming it sold. Oh, how I wanted that boat. Happy sailing. Hello Readers, I’ve added some new menu items to the top of the site to enhance the Boat de Jour experience. Hope you find this helpful. I’ve added a “Weather” menu which includes the weather maps which previously occupied space on both sidebars. Also, a new “The Boats” menu which features the sailboats that have caught my eye over the years. I thought I would start off the year with a new column that goes more to the root of my original idea for Boat de Jour. Namely, writing about sailboats and more particularly, sailboats which have caught my eye for whatever reason. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy presenting them. So here goes. 1985 Islander 48 Designer: Ted Brewer Dimensions LOA: 48′ Beam: 13’10″ LWL: 37 Maximum Draft: 5’10.5″ Displacement: 29,125 Ballast: 11,000 Bridge Clearance: 61 Engines Engine Brand: Pathfinder Engine(s) HP: 85 Cruising Speed: 7 Maximum Speed: 8.5 Tanks Fresh Water Tanks: 255 Fuel Tanks: 100 Holding Tanks: 40 The other day I was looking at sailboats on the Internet and found this beauty at http://sailonbaby.net/Home_Page.html . She is an 1985 Islander 48, which the current owner is offering for sale at the above link. This is an Islander Yachts sailboat which I did not even know existed. I immediately fell in a deep, deep love at first sight. The more I studied her the more I wanted her. To my eye, Ted Brewer nailed it on this one. The long graceful sheer, the low angled coach-roof, the overhangs. Beautiful! According to the write up there were only three of these models built by Islander Yachts, which made my wife want one even more. Mr. Brewer originally designed this as a long distance passage maker. One of the very interesting things about this sailboat that captivated me was that the companionway entered the master suite rather than the main saloon as in the typical setup. While one may move through to the saloon from the master suite, the main entrance is from another hatch on the top of the coach-roof. This puts you by the galley as can be seen in the photo. In the photo you can also see the access to the master suite on the starboard side of the ladder. To me, the galley looks very functional as well as beautiful.
Moving on to the navigation station, you will find a nicely laid out area which seems to have room for two on the seating. Lots of room for charts, lots of room for electronics and very nice joinery here as well as the rest of the craft. The electric panel looks like it could be a little tough to gain access to the rear of it as it seems to be built into a cubby.
The main saloon looks to have traditional styling with opposing settees, port and starboard. The table is of the permanent centered variety with drop down sides. The only thing I don’t like is that the keel stepped mast goes through the table using up some valuable real estate. However, with the slightly forward positioning of the the saloon there is no other option and as such is a compromise I certainly could live with. More warm teak which is typical of all Islander Yachts, including our own Islander 28, gives the saloon a very inviting atmosphere. There is no separating bulkhead between the galley and the saloon, so the galley slave can feel like they are a part of the goings on in the saloon too. One difficulty with this design is the distance from the galley to the cockpit. Not so easy to get some cool drinks while under sail with this set up, of course a cooler in the cockpit would take care of this and save ice in the main icebox. This particular Islander 48 comes with a refrigerator/freezer of course, but a closed lid saves energy in any case.
Next up is where I do all my serious thinking, the head. Come to think of it I guess my head is where I do all my thinking. Sorry. Anyway, the Islander 48 comes with two heads both of which have showers, very nice. The aft head comes complete with a separate shower stall, the forward head a curtain for privacy. Ample storage is provided in the heads as well.
The v-berth looks to be of typical design with very nice use of teak throughout and a goodly amount of storage. In this design I’m guessing this would be the guest’s quarters typically. Under the filler cushion is a hand bilge pump as well.
The master suite is really above par in the Islander 48. There is a Pullman style berth to port and an in-suite settee to starboard. The aft head is accessed easily from here as well. There seems to be lots of storage and a very comforting use of space and lighting. There seems to be ample ventilation as well with four opening portlights and two opening hatches and of course the companionway all within the master suite. You may close off the Pullman berth with nice louvered doors if making the bed isn’t on the agenda for the day as well.
The cockpit has sort of a T design with cockpit lockers on both port and starboard sides as well as an actual lazarette at the helmsman position. There looks to be two cockpit drains which also look to be very small. They drain below the waterline it appears as well. As you can see there are four winches two of which are self-tailing. You can also see that the Islander 48 has a nice narrow booty, which I tend to like on my boats.
Above decks, there is a generous, yet judicial amount of teak. From the teak topped combings to the teak bulwarks. The Islander 48 has the same eyebrow as our smaller Islander 28 and also teak hand rails along the entire length of the cabin trunk. For safety there is a double life line and a substantial bow pulpit as well as a nice stern rail. The latter also including a stainless steel boarding ladder accessible through a split stern rail, something missing on our sailboat, we have to climb over the stern rail from our ladder. I counted seven opening hatches, three dorades, ten opening portlights and two deadlights. Plenty of ventilation and lighting, although I would love to see a butterfly hatch, a la Baba 40, above the saloon table. That could be pushing the boundaries of traditionalism perhaps.
Below the waterline there is low-aspect fin keel and a skeg-hung rudder. The propeller shaft comes directly out of the aft end of the keel. The rudder is supported by the lower portion of the skeg as well as the rudder stock. The draft is 5′ 10.5”, which is pretty shallow in my estimation for a sailboat of this length and should provide all the benefits of a shallow draft where that is desirable. Our Islander 28 has a draft which is 5 feet even. The ballast to displacement ratio is just slightly under 38%. In conclusion I can say this Islander 48 represents a tremendously beautiful older cruiser that I could totally envision spending my life aboard. Definitely as a live aboard, certainly as a head-towards-the-edge-of-the-chart cruiser and perhaps a nice charter sailboat. The admiral and I could take folks out for a wondrous day or more on the water, return to port, set anchor and enjoy all the things which a life on the water offers. Ah, how I love to dream!
Credits: Images and information provided from Yachtworld.com, Sailonbaby.net and Sailboatdata.com, thank you. As we look back upon the past year I thought it would be fun to see where this adventure started. With that, I present one of the original Boat de Jour posts from two years ago. Hope you enjoy the article and have a happy and safe new year. Happy Sailing, Capt. Puffy and Honey Bunny Setting the Record Straight or Capt. Puffy Pants Eats CrowDear gentle reader, it has come to my attention that the most outrageous pack of lies ever perpetrated against the consciousness of man is being bandied about as if they were spoked by the Almighty Himself. From this point forward you shall know the truth! The day broke warm and blue. But there was a foul wind stirring which was undetectable by even the most advanced super-dopler mega-scan radar. This evil wind would reek havoc on us like has never been seen in all of sailing history. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My wife, Honey Bunny, usually a kind and loving wife, and I set out in our Catalina Capri 14.2 from the boat launch imagining that we were leaving for yet another delightful day-sail on one of our many local lakes. This was our third time out in our new sailboat. We began, as was typical, by attempting to paddle out to the main lake from the small, narrow bay in which the launch is located. This is important, because the boat launch is on the southwest corner of the lake, so there is an almost insurmountable wind-tunnel like obstacle which must be conquered to get to the main lake. There are thick mats of impenetrable lily pads, forming an even narrower channel, boarded by a wall of cattails and muck. Now imagine me, calm, patient man that I am, straddling the bow on my butt with feet dangling on either side, hunched over in what can only be described as a uncomfortable position, trying to paddle our craft with one of those collapsible, emergency paddles. I would take a stroke on one side and while switching sides for the next stroke, the wind would blow us back two feet. Oh well, only a few hundred yards to go, no sweat, I’m calm and patient after all, nothing ever riles me! At this point in our sailing careers, we were in the habit of rigging the sail on the mast after we were out far enough to have some sea room for this procedure. So after what seemed like an eternity and perhaps now more like 2 miles, we make it, with me having beaten the water to a frothy mocca latte’ and my dear, sweet wife at the tiller. I’m the spry member of the crew so I am now tasked with bending on the sails. As an aside, we would later figure out that a really good time to “bend on” sails is back on dry land. Back to the present, what had seemed on shore like a light breeze on the Beaufort scale, had now become a fresh breeze, complete with whitecaps and all. And not content to blow like the devil, the wind came from all the compass points it could think of, plus a few extra for good measure. So after nearly being flogged to death by the main and jib sail, we are finally ready to set forth. For those of you not familiar with the Capri 14.2, it is a dingy style sailboat and as such, unballasted and if I were asked, not the most stable craft in the world. Anyways, we were jetting across the lake now at about 80 knots with the wind in my hair and my wife at the helm. Since acquiring this, our first sailboat, two weeks ago I was in the process of reading several books on sailing and so was quite the expert on all things sailing. At this point I noticed she was not handling the tiller as efficiently as I thought she could be. In my calm and patient manner for which I am known far and wide, I began to gently advise her of this. Now to refute these outrageous lies that some people are spreading, I was not “screaming” at her. I was not being a “jerk” and I was certainly not acting like a “pompous ass”! I was simply mentioning that I had read that a gentle motion with the tiller would be more efficient in this situation. Not “what the bleep are you doing, trying to churn butter with that bleeping rudder! With my keen sense of direction, I also noticed that instead of maintaining a uniform heading, we were zig zagging all over the place like we were rabbits dodging shotgun blasts on opening day of rabbit season. Now, if we were tacking this would all be fine and dandy, but this was not the case, it was simply a case of not maintaining a proper heading. And I calmly and patiently said so, in what can only be described as a very unsarcastic and sincere manner, saying “that perhaps we might reach our destination quicker if we sailed a more direct course”. Some people just don’t take constructive criticism very well. This may be a good time to mention this. Boat healing is a new experience for me and although I have read about how it is perfectly normal for a sailboat to heal, this knowledge has not yet made it to my sphincter. So every time we would bear off, the boat would heal more and my sphincter would tightened so much that it would literally propel me out into the most extreme and heroic hiking maneuvers ever seen in modern sailing. The whole time, I was calmly and patiently advising my wife about all the wonderful things I had been reading concerning the finer points of sailing in near gale conditions. Did I mention that our sails had no reefing system in place so we were sailing “full and by” as they say. By this time apparently, my calmness in the face of utter chaos was simply too much for my wife to take and she snapped. Honey Bunny caught me totally off guard, here I thought we were having a perfectly calm discussion about sailing technique when all of sudden she starts making all these wild and crazy accusations about me. About how if “I’m so damn smart why don’t I just sail the bleeping boat my damn self”. Well, to say I was surprised is quite the understatement. And the manner and phrasing she used to start her foul mouthed statement. “bleep you”? I mean really! Is that really necessary? Here I am, trying to be just as helpful as I can be in the face of our imminent deaths and she starts assaulting me with crass language and assaults to my character? So now I’m finally at the helm, did I mention she tends to be a bit of helm hog, and it becomes apparent that those books I had been reading were written by a bunch of rank amateurs. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the trifling details on why this information was needed at this time, but lets just say the sailing conditions were a bit more tricky than I had anticipated. There was no mention of how to get back in the boat after you capsize. Just climb in they say. Not to mention how one keeps the boat pointed into the wind to right it when you are hanging on for dear life as you try to climb onto the centerboard for leverage. These are not easy tasks! Fortunately, there were other boaters on the lake, three of which were on the scene practically before we popped back up to the surface. They assisted us out of the water and onto their boats, I on one boat, Honey Bunny on the other, and with a short hop we were both back on our boat. We were grateful for their help. The other boat rounded up some of our belongings and counseled us on not getting discouraged, and that it can happen to any one. If only they knew the treachery and mutiny that had only moments ago transpired. The way I like to view this whole series of events is that it was a good learning experience. And the retelling of this story over and over with all of her outrageous and completely unnecessary “embellishments” to anyone she can corner is getting a little stale and frankly makes me question her loyalty to her unimpeachable crew. For some reason my wife thinks this whole “story” is quite amusing. Whereas, anyone who knows the facts would think she should be embarrassed of the way she panicked, lost her mind and quit the helm at the most dire of times as we were sailing under full on hurricane conditions. I have a good mind to turn her in to the authorities for unsailorly behavior. Shortly thereafter, we got ourselves reorganized and were once again underway, the hurricane having passed and the warm gentle breeze with us once again. Now with Honey Bunny at the helm, me remaining alert for the return of more foul winds and with some trepidation, keeping my advice to myself, we set off once again. We sailed around a little while longer and then decided we had had enough adventure for the day. She sailed the boat all the way back to the dock stopping the boat mere inches away just like she had been doing it her whole life. Some day I’m going to mention to her that no one likes a show off, but not today I think. Looking back, the one thing I remember which had escaped me before, was how the water had a taste not too dissimilar from that of crow. Sincerely, Capt. Puffy Pants Continued at “The Missing Transcripts of Setting the Record Straight or Capt. Puffy Pants Eats Crow” |
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