Seaforth has a sister
08 February 2012 | Auckland, New Zealand
Steve
The plans we picked up from the designer were for Seaforth's sistership, Samasaan. The two yachts are virtually identical, but as Samasaan is the older sister, Seaforth had to be just a little bit different. The plans show the gas locker up forward, whereas Seaforth's gas locker is down aft, borrowing some space from the capacious starboard lazarette. The door to the aft cabin is hinged on the opposite side to the door in the drawings. The most important difference though is that Seaforth's keel is 4 inches (100 mm) further aft than Samasaan's.
Apparently the original owner of Samasaan wanted to install a diving compressor in the lazarette down aft, so Laurie Davidson allowed for the weight of a compressor when he did the keel location calculations and mounted the keel 100 mm further forward to account for the extra weight down aft. In the end the compressor was never fitted so apparently Samasaan has always trimmed slightly bow down.
Samasaan is now owned by a lovely couple, Chris and Monica Cotter and she's currently in Malaysia waiting for the Cotters to settle some business in NZ and return to their cruising adventure.
Actually, after talking with Chris and Monica we've realised that Samasaan isn't built to drawings either ... she's also got the gas locker aft and the cabin door hinged the same way we have. Put it down to creative licence in the building process.
So, Seaforth isn't quite a "one off" custom vessel. Bloody close though. :)