We are a retired couple, and have been living on board of our sailboat for 9 years now. The boat is a Fraser 42,centre cockpit,and she was built in Vancouver , in 1978, designed and built by the de Kleer brothers. She is fully insulated, and we had no idea at the time, how important that is. Her hull is solid fibreglass, and her deck is one piece together with the deckhouse.

This makes her very strong. She is cutter rigged,and recently we installed furlers for the front sails, and also installed a new mainsail.We make our own power, with two solar panels, windgenerator, and if there is no wind, no sun, then we use the 2000 watt  Honda gas generator, which fills the battery bank up in no time.Also , Bert, my husband, installed a watermaker, which is very important. i will tell more about her later on.

She is warm and cozy inside, has an open design,no large bulkheads, and has  big hatches, so lots of light comes in. We sleep in the aft cabin, and the V-berth holds our two folding bikes right now, plus the cat, Annie, who loves to sleep there. For heat we use our trusted diesel stove,a Dickinson,Newport model, also Bert installed a Hurricane hotwater heating system, which can seperately heat the hot water too, for the shower.When the engine runs, we can use the bus heaters.

Her engine, which we installed in 2004, is a diesel, Isuzu 56. She came originally with a very old  Mercedes diesel engine, we had to start it with ether, just not a comfy idea!!!           Curtsy has hydraulic propulsion, very different from the usual gears, and it takes away from our power, but its very reliable, there is no neutral,we can go forward or reverse in one move.