www.svbeatrix.com — The website of the Sailing Vessel Beatrix, Kelly-Peterson 44 #276 (1980).

 

Welcome to the Beatrix web site.  Beatrix is a Peterson Cutter, commonly known as a "Kelly-Peterson 44". She is hull #276 of the 44' center-cockpit medium displacement cruising cutters designed by Doug Peterson and built by Jack Kelly for fast passage making and comfortable safe cruising.  (Read about the KP44 at  www.kp44.org).  My name is Jeff Stander and I have been a live-aboard on Beatrix since 1998. This web site includes position reports, photos, logs and travels of Beatrix as a history and informational site for friends, family, and anyone else who may be interested.  


ALASKA VOYAGE

During the summer of 2005 I voyaged from Seattle up the Inside Passage to Juneau, Alaska, twice to Glacier Bay, then around the outside of Chicagof and Baranov Islands, and back down the Inside to Seattle.. There are a large number of photos on the pages devoted to this voyage.


THE PACIFIC COAST VOYAGE

I125

In 2006 I left Seattle, my home for 9 years, and embarked on the grand voyage — sailing to the South Pacific with Australia as my destination and home.

Sailing from Seattle to Southern California in 2006 was the first step . Departure date was the 20th of September with Bob Hawk and Blair Fraser as crew. They are both owners/skippers of their own KP44s. The plan took us south down the 125° W longitude lilne, leaving from Cape Flattery and making landfall in San Francisco 6 days later. It was hard to leave the most perfect place in the world to work on a boat, but it was time to quit refitting and rebuilding and start sailing, although since cruising has been defined as

"boat maintenance in exotic ports" I fully expect the projects to be ongoing -- I just won't be in walking distance from the West's biggest sailboat chandlery. But it was time to leave Seattle, turn the page, and start a new chapter...


SAN DIEGO AND ENSENADA

2007 was spent in San Diego and occasionally Ensenada, MX, working up to finally leaving the USA and heading to the South Pacific. Final departure from San Diego was 10 January, 2008. We stopped at Baja Naval in Ensenada for fuel and to bid farewell to our wonderful friends Victor and Andre Satie aboard Easy Breeze. On Tuesday Jan 15, birthdate of my daughter Sarah, we departed at last from Ensenada to La Paz. Aboard were Kathy Perkins and Fiona Rhodes. Winds are light, seas are calm, and the crew and I were excited to be off.


VOYAGE TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC

On May 1, 2008 we set sail for the Marquesas from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We arrived 24 days later in Atouna on the island of Hiva Oa. Distance travelled was nearly 3000 nautical miles over the ground, with a rhumb line distance of 2590 miles. Leaving in May, the ITCZ (doldrums) are very broad, but except for motoring from 7° N to the equator we had wonderful sailing. Our best VMG day was 175 miles!

 

While the sailing was brilliant I continue to have equipment failures and I am no longer surprised. I am developing a new philosophy of cruising which takes into account that the definition of cruising needs to be extended to "boat maintenance between exotic ports." The generator is not working again and we also have suffered total refrigeration failure and partial radar failure. I can't endorse them highly enough.

 

The HF radio modem was not working for a while so we received no emails (or weather data). It appears to be working again as long as I keep a toothpick jammed into the "on" switch. Meanwhile we have discovered we can do without the referigeration, which used an enormous amount of power, thus ameliorating the impact of the generator failure. I.e. the refrigeration and generator failures were paired disasters that kind of cancel each other out. A cold beer would be nice however.

 

I have not been able to update the photos and website for some time now. It stops with the Tuamotus and does not yet cover our time in Tahiti, the Sous Les Ventes (Leeward Islands of Moorea, Tahaa, Bora Bora, etc), Suwarrow, American Samoa, Samoa, and New Caledonia. At the moment (25 Dec, 2008) we are sailing to Bundaberg, Australia.

 

We spent six weeks in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and had a good time except for a couple of weeks with dengue fever. Apia in Samoa also received a couple of weeks and after that we sailed directly to New Caledonia, 1582 miles in 12 days and 4 hours. We skipped Vava'u in Tonga because the winds were so good, and we love the long passages, at least ones like this.

 


For some photos of the 2008 journey to the South Pacifc, see the the following pages:

Mexico to the Marquesas
Checking into French Polynesia
In the Marquesas
Manihi, Ahe, and Rangiroa in the Tuamotu Archipeligo

POSITION REPORTS

Yotreps
Download Yotreps Reporter to track our progress using a low-resolution world charting system. Our boat identifier is KE7EFQ

 

 

Jeff is currently webmaster and listserv owner/moderator for the Peterson Cutter Web site and Peterson Cutter Mailing List.  If you are interested in the Kelly Peterson 44, KP46, Formosa 46, or other flavors of the Doug Peterson Cutters, please visit the web site and join the eGroup.

 

Jeff Stander

 

What's on the site?

 

 



 
Last modified: January 23 2023 18:29