LOA: 42 feet, 4 inches • BEAM: 15 feet • POWER: single 135-hp Lehman diesel • SPEED: 7 knots cruise • RANGE: 3,200 nautical miles at 7 knots • TANKAGE: 700 gallons fuel, 360 gallons water • CONTACT: Kadey-Krogen Yachts, Stuart, Florida, (800) 247-1230. kadeykrogen.com
“You must have confidence in your boat. Getting a well-found boat that has been well-maintained is paramount. Also, have confidence in your own skills. You need to believe you can find a fix for almost anything. Plan for the worst; hope for the best. Boredom is a problem — have a way to pass the time. If you don’t, you will worry yourself to death. Don’t chase the weather. Once you’re underway, there isn’t much you can do about it.”
— Richard Bost
How did you get into long-distance passagemaking? The initial goal was simply to have a boat that we could live on in Europe. The more I read about the exploits of others in small boats crossing oceans, the more I realized that not only I could do that, but that I was always into the trip as much as the destination. In short, we love traveling.
Because my former wife had only three weeks of vacation in the summer, the original plan was for her to meet Dauntless in Europe after arrival. But my prospective crew fell through just weeks before our planned departure. Julie decided she wanted to do the Atlantic from Rhode Island to the Azores. She loved it. Her first words after her first steps on land were, “I could do another three weeks!”
What type of modifications/special gear/systems/equipment did you have to install to prepare your boat for this type of voyaging?
Simplicity is more important than redundancy when crossing oceans because you must have the confidence to fix any problems or breakdowns. That being said, we’ve added a lot of systems, including paravane stabilizers, a watermaker, an AIS transceiver, a four-person life raft, Jeppesen C-Map charts, a fuel polishing system, half-inch Lexan storm windows over all glass and a ton (literally) of spare parts.
What are your future cruising plans? For 2018 we will cruise north along the West Coast of North America. Between 2019 and 2020 we’ll tackle British Columbia and Southeast Alaska before crossing the North Pacific to Japan and South Korea in 2021. Beyond that, we’ll do Taiwan and more of Korea and Japan in 2022, return to northern Europe between 2023 and 2024 and do our second Baltic cruise in 2025.
