Our New Home

Can you picture it? A family living their dreams here. A place to call home.

Here are the numbers:

• Hundreds of online listings and videos reviewed over the course of 8 months to create our “short list”
• Countless early morning and late night conversations about “must-haves” and “hope-to-haves” for our floating home
• No fewer than three linked spreadsheets
• 2 whirlwind trips to the East Coast
• 2 states, 5 hotel stays, 8 flights
• 3 rental cars covering 600+ miles on the road, driving back and forth between yacht yards, marinas and airports
• 11 on-site boat tours
• Some serious contenders, including a most awesome pirate ship
• ONE immediate feeling of, “This is it. This is home.”

Our hearts are so filled with joy and excitement and relief and about a million other emotions as I type these next words: We got her!

She’s a 2001 Bavaria Ocean 42 center cockpit. And she’s exactly what we’ve been looking for. (See our photo galley below.)

She has been meticulously maintained and upgraded by the previous owners.  It’s a newer boat, but has the design elements and gorgeous woodwork of the older ocean cruisers. She’s built very well and blue-water ready, and very comfortable down below with plenty of living and storage space.

Her topsides double as a outdoor playground, with ample spots to play, have outdoor meals, and luxuriate on the swim platform. She has a good balance of heavier displacement for stability and an efficient hull design for faster sailing.

And she’s fitted out like a dream (most of it recently redone):

• Furling main and genoa sails with adjustable whisker/spinnaker pole, and spinnaker – with electric primary winches
• Boat is powered completely by 800 watts of solar panels, as well as a 4.5kW diesel generator
• Radar, AIS, GPS, SSB and Pactor Modem, underwater 360 sonar, and two EPIRBS
• 4-person liferaft
• Custom canvas shade cover for the entire deck (deployed while at anchor for lots of shade)
• Custom dingy davits with motor hoist (we’ll be getting a RIB dingy and outboard motor)
• Electric windlass with two anchors, plus sea drogue
• Huge AGM battery system (nearly 1,000 Ah)
• Watermaker (Spectra Ventura, six-gallons per hour – solar or genset powered)
• Multi-zone Air Conditioning
• Two scuba tanks and accessories, plus fishing poles, hand-line reels on the stern rail, and lures.
• Two electric heads and a separate shower, plus a hot/cold water outdoor shower on the swim platform
• Keel cooled refrigerator with secondary separate freezer for longer-term provisioning
• Hard bimini and cockpit roof, with integrated rain catchment, red/white LED lighting and speakers.
• Entertainment system in Salon w/ TV, mast-mounted antenna, DVD, surround sound w/ sub, plus second system in main aft cabin.
• Lot’s of other recent upgrades

We’re currently setting up the final survey and sea trial at some point in the next two weeks, which in house-buying terms is the similar to an inspection. Assuming that no huge issues are found (which we doubt there will be),  we’ll finalize the deal and the keys, so to speak, will be handed over to us toward the end of June.

There aren’t too many times in my life that I’ve experienced tears of joy, but right now, they abound.

Can you picture it? A family living their dreams here. A place to call home.

Folding swim platform. This makes for a wonderful space for us to relax while at anchor, and also provides for easy boarding of the dinghy and getting provisions from shore onto the boat.

Folding cockpit table

Hard dodger and cockpit enclosure

Solar panels on cockpit roof. A rainwater collection system is also incorporated here that feeds directly, via filters, to our holding tanks. EPIC!

And more solar panels! We can easily use the power from these (coupled with our gen set) to be completely self-sufficient while at anchor (or anywhere else).

LED lighting in the cockpit, with lots of hand-holds.

The roomy salon, view from the galley

From the salon, the pass-through galley leads to the aft cabin. An additional deep freezer is also situated underneath the cockpits steps.

Navigation station

The engine room, along with parts of the gen set and the water maker. The water maker will convert sea water to fresh drinking water – just another way for us to be completely self-sufficient.

Claire’s v-berth cabin. Lots of natural light, plenty of nooks for her stuffed animals and toys.

Our well-appointed aft stateroom, with a surprising amount of shelves, drawers, lockers and storage areas, not to mention a TV

The view from the bed to the aft head the mirrored door leads there). The door to the left of the TV leads to the galley.

The aft head, with a separate shower stall (yes!!). The head also leads out to the nav station, and Claire has her own small head next to her cabin.

Overall layout