I thought I would tell you something about Wild Song. She is a 38ft Victoria, known in the US as a Morris 38, designed by Chuck Paine. We bought her 18 months ago for this trip and we were lucky to find her in good condition and well fitted out. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance.
She is cutter rigged which gives us great flexibility, and she is the first boat we have ever owned which doesn't have a long keel so for the first time in our sailing careers we can steer this boat backwards with confidence.
She feels very comfortable at sea, never slams, and seems dry on deck although I must admit we have yet to test her in severe weather. We carry a trysail for when that arises, and envisage that trysail and reefed staysail will provide a comfortable heavy weather sail combination. Neither of us care for spinnakers, especially when single-handed as I shall be for some of the time, so we have bought, at huge expense, a Parasailor on which we will report in due course. On the trial sail it seemed much more easily handled than a conventional spinnaker and I'm very confident about it and don't have the dread I associate with conventional spinnakers. The design has come out of the parachute industry and the quality it shows in small details such as the strength of the snuffer.
Our self steering is Monitor. Our last boat had a Hydrovane, which I loved, but I have great confidence in the Monitor too, which has the slight advantage that you can raise the paddle in harbours and marinas. Reefing is single line, all led aft, and that will take some getting used to. Our last boat required a trip to the mast, and in a way I will miss that. I've found a lot of friction in single line reefing systems and to try and avoid some of it I've had the first and second reefs re-rigged with smaller dyneema lines to try and avoid that.
Engine: Volvo 2040 with Featherstream prop
Main anchor: Manson Supreme (20kg), spare anchors Spade and Fortress.
Watermaker: Katadyn 40E
You can find more details in the side bar.