BOAT

S/V Caladh

Caladh is a 1990 Victoria 34 foot yacht Bermudan sloop.  ‘Caladh’ from Old Irish ‘calad’ (“shore, port, landing-place; land (as opposed to sea)”), from Late Latin ‘calatum’.

LOA: 10.43m (34.2ft),  LWL: 8.63m (28.3ft),  Beam: 3.25m (10.7ft),  Draft: 1.47m (4.8ft),  Displacement: 8500kgs (8.5 tonnes), British Flagged.

Built by Victoria Yachts to American Chuck Paine’s design.  She is a heavy displacement yacht with a long fin keel and skeg-hung rudder, which makes her very suitable for bluewater cruising. Built to Lloyd’s Register specs, with solid GRP hulls and balsa-cored decks she is traditional in appearance, with high-quality joinery and equipment. Produced in the UK from 1985 to around 2000, the Victoria 34 yacht was even chosen by the Army as one of their adventure training boats.  She is extremely tough and sturdy, which make her the sailing nomads crew very happy!

Interior joinery is finished in teak to a high standard, with x6 berths in x2 cabins and x1 head.  Designed with heeling-over in mind, all cabinetry offers positive locking to prevent objects flying all over the place (if you remember to close properly that is). Caladh has well-placed handholds, lee-cloths fitted to the saloon and quarter berths to keep you in bed on a rougher sea and D-rings for clipping on throughout.

The geeky bits… The engine is a Yanmar 3M30F, 27hp diesel equipped with a 70amp alternator and a 3 bladed propeller with Ambassador rope-stripper. Caladh carries x2 150 litre flexible water tanks and x1 99-litre stainless steel fuel tank.  On board is one semi-battened mainsail with three slab reefs and two genoas and a trysail (also known as a ‘spencer’) and storm jib for when the weather gets interesting! We do have a spinnaker pole, but currently saving for the sail (minor detail!). 

Caladh has x3 anchors, x7 winches, x4 solar panels (total 200-watt capacity), x1 wind generator (Aero6Gen), x6 fire extinguishers, an x8 person life raft and x13 fenders *phew*! Not to mention all of the navigation and electrical equipment, which includes *deep breath* x2 110-volt batteries for domestic supply, x1 110 volt engine start battery, GPS/Chart Plotter, spare GPS, Radar, Navtex, AIS, Autopilot ST6000+, VHF Radio, Emergency Radio Aerial, standard instrumentation (Compass, Wind, Depth, Speed, Repeater – all Autohelm ST50), EPIRB and battery charger and monitor.

Now you’ve met Caladh, why not find out more about her motley crew here.