16 Apr 2003:
THE ‘SEVENTH HEAVEN ‘STORY
When Betty and I semi retired in November 2000 we decided to buy a yacht and go cruising a simple enough plan. Off we went trade-a-boat in hand traveling the east coast of Australia in search of our dream yacht. As usual the yachts that we liked were out of our budget or way over priced so after 18 months of disappointments Betty suggested that seeing we were the agents for Dehler yachts why not buy a Dehler 41 deck saloon well what a shock so after thinking about the idea for around two seconds agreed with her proposal. You may well ask what about the budget well sometimes these things get forgotten in the excitement of the moment and before we had taken this into consideration an order had been placed.
A few months later we were off to Germany to visit the Dehler factory at which time we were able to inspect the fitting out of ‘Seventh Heaven’
‘Seventh Heaven’ arrived in Sydney by ship on 22 March and was taken by barge to Noaks boatyard where the keel and mast were fitted and launched on 16 April 2003.
'Seventh Heaven' is a Judel/Vrolijk design 12.45m in length with fine lines below the waterline and very stylish above and with the self taking jib and all lines leading aft to the electric winches makes her easily managed single handed. As you step down below decks there is a large saloon with windows all round for perving, further forward is the galley where Betty makes her delicious meals and to starboard the luxurious head with our fantastic Tecma silent flush loo. Up forward is the main cabin with king size bunk and the guests cabin is aft on the port side. We are powered by a 50HP Yanmar engine and 4 Kva genset.
As it so happened we were not quite ready to go sailing off into the sunset therefore it was decided to put ‘Seventh Heaven’ into charter and at the same time return to the workforce managing Cumberland Charter Yachts.
In the meantime we meet Gay & Graeme Footer on their beautiful yacht ‘Marnico’ and to quote Graeme ‘the level of comfort on a yacht is directly proportional to the amount of energy consumed’ so a few extras such as airconditioning, watermaker (63 litres / hour), breadmaker, microwave, freezer and our Tecma silent flush toilet to mention a few have been added to consume more energy.
In September 2006 we fully retired and set off on our sailing adventure and now call ‘Seventh Heaven’ home
Seventh Heaven Specifications
Overall length Lol 12.45 m
Length waterline Lwl 11.05 m
Maximum beam Wmax 3.90 m
Draft standard keel Dmax 1.95 m
Side height midships Db 1.22 m
Mast hieght above waterline HD 19.50 m
Mainsail triple reef 46 m˛
Self tacking jib 35 m˛
Asymmetric spinnaker 124 m˛
Unladen weight Uw 8300 kg
Maximum weight Vmax 10300 kg
Keel weight Gs 2960 kg
Inboard diesel engine Yanmar, type 4JH3E 41.2kW
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The
Cruising Adventures of Seventh Heaven with Charlie and Betty
