Story of Chrysalis

Story of Chrysalis: First Power Catamaran to Cross the Atlantic

Fall, 2004: Mike and I find an empty power catamaran fiberglass shell in a farmers field, New Zealand.

Winter 2004: We ship it to West Palm Beach, FL.

Spring 2005: We have the mother of all garage sales, sell our house and cars and move with our two teenagers down to West Palm to finish the boat ourselves.

Summer 2005: In the Florida heat and humidity we spend the summer sawing, sanding, glueing, staining, running pluming  and the inside of Chrysalis begins to take shape. We install most everything ourselves including plumbing, electrical and woodworking. We tell the kids it is one big homeschooling project.

Fall 2005: With Chrysalis hardly complete, we move aboard anyway and armed with a ton of books on how to operate a boat we begin taking trips around south Florida, homeschooling the kids, and trying not to run aground.

2005-2007: The four of us learn: how to live together in tight quarters, navigate, plan an offshore voyage, spear fish, anchor, dock, what a solenoid is, that overflowing heads aren’t fun, to filet a 30 lb Mahi Mahi, use a metal detector, train a puppy to do his duty on a small piece of astroturf, clean a conch, and play MarioKart.We travel from Miami all the way to Halifax, Canada visiting such great cities as Norfolk, Washington DC, Annapolis, Baltimore, New York City, Boston, and the Bahamas: West End, Abacos, Eleuthras, and Paradise Island.

June 2007:  We leave from Jensen Beach, FL and make it too the island of Bermuda.

July 2007: We travel the greatest distance from Bermuda to the Azores, making it to Faial.

September 2007: We arrive triumphant, the first power catamaran to cross the Atantic (so we’ve been told), on the north shore of Morocco.

September 2007-April 2009: The four of us travel to Gibraltar, Spain, France, Monaco, Italy (including Sardinia and Sicily), Malta, Greece, Turkey, Israel, through the Suez Canal to Egypt and back to Palma Mallorca, Spain before shipping Chrysalis back to the States aboard Dockwise

July 2010: Kim publishes her first book, Charting the Unknown: Family, Fear, and One Long Boat Ride through Behler Publications.

I’m including general specs here, but for more information, please visit:

www.chrysalisvoyage.com

Specs:

Designer: Malcolm Tennant

Builder: Pachoud, New Zealand, cored fiberglass

Length: 65 feet

Beam: near to 25 feet

Fuel/Range: 1400 gallons, 2800 miles

Top Speed: 24 knots

Cruising: 10 knots

Engines: twin 330 Cummins

Staterooms: 4 (3 plus office)

Heads: 4 including one aft in the cockpit

Perks: BBQ, washer/dryer combo, large freezer, full size appliances, walk-in engine rooms, two full size showers in heads, DC generator, watermaker, Soundown engine mufflers (we  recommend—we’ve got the quietest engines around).

Longest Passage to date: 8.5 days from Hamilton, Bermuda to Horta, Faial, Azores. Roughly 2000 miles, traveling at 10 knots, 2 mpg

Roughest seas: 12-14 foot seas in the Gulf Stream off Miami on our way to the Bahamas. Sunny skies, strong northerly wind, in an attempt to see what Chrysalis was made of. Obviously better stuff than we are—after over an hour, we turned around and went back to Miami. Coming in at a close 2^nd place, were seas in the Red Sea, where gale force northerlies seem to blow non-stop all spring! Steep, choppy, never ending 9-11 footers, all the way from Hurghada to Port Suez. The only time in our cruising history that one of us, Lauren, said, “That’s it! These waves are freakin me out. I’m going below.”

Some of the places she’s been: Bahamas including Freeport, Paradise Island, Eleuthras and Abacos, West Palm Beach, Miami, Nettles Island, St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Wilmington NC, Hilton Head NC, Myrtle Beach NC, Norfolk VA, Annapolis MD, Washington DC, Baltimore, Atlantic City NJ, New York City, Nantucket Island, Boston, Shelbourne Nova Scotia, Halifax Nova Scotia, Bermuda, Faial Azores, Ponta Delgada Sao Miguel Azores, Madeira Azores, Ceuta Spain (tip of Morocco), Gibraltar, Calpe Spain, Barcelona Spain, Santa Margherita Italy, Fiumicino Italy (Rome), Trapani Sardinia, Alghero Sicily, Valletta Malta, Ayios Nikolas Greece, Tel Aviv Israel, Herzilya Israel, Port Said Egypt, Hurghada Egypt, Marmaris Turkey, Samos Greece, Patmos Greece, Rhodes Greece,  Palma Mallorca Spain.

Presently in south Florida.