The Boat
The sailboats that we have had so much fun on, starting with “Nixon was cool…”, “Sudden Stops Necessary”, “Secret Agent Man”, “Magic Carpet” and now “Navasana”. I guess we learnt over time that less is more when it comes to boat names 🙂
#5 Nautitech 46 Open “Navasana” (2022 to…)
Our fifth boat “Navasana” is a 2022 Nautitech 46 Open medium performance catamaran. Navasana comes from the Sanskrit words नाव nava meaning “boat” and आसन asana meaning “meditative seat”. For us, Navasana is our ideal “boat meditative seat” to sail around the world in 🙂
The 46 Open has the perfect combination of performance, space and price. It has lighter and narrower hulls than the typical cruising cats which mean it can move in light airs and also has the interior space and weight carrying capacity that the high performance cats don’t have. We bought the boat new and made a lot of upgrades to get the boat ready for long distance cruising with the help of our broker Neomarine. We detailed all the upgrades and modifications to outfit Navasana for ocean cruising here.
#4 Beneteau First 30 JK “Magic Carpet” (2016 to 2022)
The first production boat designed by Juan Kouyoumdjian (Volvo ocean race boat designer) and Michel Desjoyeaux (two time vendee globe winner) she looks a little bit like a mini IMOCA open 60, with a fat arse, twin rudders, hard chines, square topped main, aft mainsheet traveller, plumb bow, fixed bowsprit, T bulb keel and tiller steering but inside she has a proper and “heavy” cruising interior with heating to boot. She is pretty petite at 32ft but a lot of fun, especially with the asymmetric kite up!
#3 J/92 “Secret Agent Man” aka “SAM” (2012 to 2017)
I bought SAM because I like fast boats and boy is she fast (and rated really well at PHRF 105). She is the perfect boat for San Francisco Bay where you can sail all year round if you can move in light airs. She does that really well, doing 5 knots on a close reach with only 6 knots of breeze! I raced her a little in the midwinters but mostly sailed her in the bay either single-handed or with crew. The huge retractable bowsprit means she is a speed machine with the asymmetric up.
#2 Beneteau First 38s5 “Sudden Stops Necessary” aka “Stops”
I bought Stops initially to race and cruise outside the bay. She was pretty bare, used by the previous owners for day sails inside the bay. In 2008 I decided to take a sabbatical to go sailing and I really need a boat that was kitted out for a long distance cruise. But that was height of the financial crash and nobody was buying boats. I wasn’t able to sell Nixon and figured I no chance of selling Stops. So I made the decision to refit Stops for ocean cruising. I had to most of the work myself to keep the costs down. Over two years I embarked on a major refit that involved most weekends. I rewired the boat, installed a bigger battery bank, second diesel tank, wind generator, solar panels, self steering windvane, SSB radio, chart plotter and new instruments, new VHF radio with AIS, new anchor windlass etc etc.. Finally she was properly kitted out for ocean sailing. I wrote up most of the projects here Refitting S/V Sudden Stops Necessary
I then left on Oct 2010 and sailed her to Australia, more details here. She handled the 13,000 miles very well. Only issue was a rudder sleeve coming loose which I glued back with a haulout in Raiatea. I then sold her in Australia, which at that time was a good market to sell boats because of the strong Aussie dollar. Had great times on Stops and was sorry to see her go.
#1 J/24 – USA 2737 “Nixon was Cool…” aka “Nixon” (2003 to 2010)
Nixon was my first boat. I couldn’t change her name because she was a winning boat (superstition says you can’t change the name of the winner) and she was also a legend in the bay. Many J/105 skippers in San Francisco had started sailing on Nixon. I bought her to start racing one design, after sailing a lot of handicap races. 2004 was a training year and ended up near the bottom of the season rankings but in 2005 we managed a 5th overall even after breaking the boom and missing 4 races.
We had a great racing crew with Jon, James, Osman, Aude, Munzie and many others. Even had tshirts and hats made! I bought Stops the following year and stopped racing Nixon that often and finally sold her in 2010.
