Symphony in Sea is a blog of SV Symphony, a Catalina 42 MKII yacht, her crew, Graeme, Sue and Jamie, and their sailing adventures.
Symphony was launched in 1996, so she’s got a few years on her, but like most 25-year-olds will tell you, she’s pretty cool and has awesome fashion sense. We like the way the Catalinas are built, and many have successfully crossed oceans and circumnavigated. We’ve taken Symphony as far as the Louisiade Archipelago (Papua New Guinea), in 2013, and she proved most capable.
Symphony is a sloop, (one mast), is 42-feet long (almost 13 metres) with a beam (width) of almost 14-feet (more than 4 metres). She has a large cockpit (with gas BBQ), which can seat around 10 people comfortably, a spacious and comfortable saloon, which can seat 6 or 7 people for dinner, three double cabins, an in-line galley (with double sink, 3-burner stove/oven and fridge), two heads (bathrooms), and a nav-station with lots of screens and buttons. Symphony is powered by SAILS of course. (And a Yanmar 50hp inboard engine. Thank God for that.) She has a bank of batteries and solar panels to supply the boat’s many electrical systems. Up forward, we’ve got a Rocna anchor (25kg) and 100 metres of chain.
We find she has a kindly sea motion and we enjoy her many creature comforts. Our average cruising speed is around 6-7 knots, which is equivalent to 11-13 kms per hour. You can’t run faster than this, but you could beat us on a bicycle! So, to give you a better idea, while it will take only a couple of hours to drive from our place in Sydney to Port Stephens (a distance of 185kms), it will take us from Pittwater about 14 hours to sail at our average cruising speed.
It is all about the journey, not the destination, haven’t you heard?
Symphony in Sea 