The boat

Kilauea

Our home is an Australian flagged 2018 Nautitech 46 Open built by Bavaria Yachts in France named Kilauea by its original owners, a name we love and decided to keep. It is named after the largest of the volcanos on the island of Hawaii that last erupted as recently as December 2020. Kilauea means “spewing” or “much spreading” in the Hawaiian language which might well be fitting when we get into the ocean waves. A more romantic meaning is the Goddess of fire, lightening, wind and volcanoes.

We have the three cabin version of this model. The “owner’s hull” has a double cabin at the stern (back), office area in the middle and head (bathroom) up in the bow (front) with separate shower area. The other hull has a cabin and head at each end with a shared shower in between. The area between the two hulls is taken up with the saloon (living area), galley (kitchen) and navigation area. This opens out to a large covered cockpit and there are twin helms (where you steer the boat) right at the back of each hull.

We have 900W of solar power and eight 100Ah lithium batteries which in the tropics should be enough to power all our needs including the 3 fridges, 2 freezers, navigation equipment, lights, devices and the water maker. The latter should provide all the fresh water we need from the ocean through the magic of reverse osmosis. That means all we really need to keep topped up is food (some of which we will hopefully catch), gas for the cooker and diesel, although being a sailing boat we hope the need for fuel will be minimal. The idea is to be as self sufficient as possible and have the lightest of environmental footprints during the journey.

The boat competed in the 2019 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) with its previous owners and three kids and cruised the Caribbean as far West as Panama before being sold to us.