........is a Najad 440, built in 1991 by Najadvarvaret at Henan on the island of Orust in Sweden. She is the sixteenth of eighteen in her class and was acquired in 1997 from Claus Heinrich, joint owner of the Paul Heinrich shipping line (now SAL), Hamburg. The boat was named after the first sailing ship owned by the company which was delivered by the Sietas ship yard in 1838.
Amoenitas (Latin) - delightful or pleasantness (of a place)
Here she is, doing what she does best, beating to widward, here up the north west coast of Thailand
We found her, after a long search, in Santa Ponsa in Mallorca in late March '97. She was ours a month later and we sailed her the 2000 miles back to the UK in a three week voyage the following month.
Dave then spent two winters preparing her for extended cruising in the tropics. The first phase was a total overhaul of all the basic systems (engine, transmission, loos!! etc) plus adding enhanced anchoring systems, mast steps, wind vane steering and most essential, a first class hi-fi system. This was all proven in a 1100 mile cruise to La Rochelle, in the corner of the Bay of Biscay in the Summer of '98. The second phase of refitting saw the diesel generator set replaced, a desalination plant installed and additional electronics in the form of a forward looking sonar, third GPS receiver and ESM (a detector of radar signals from other boats). To keep all this alive he fitted a transom 'goalpost' carrying two solar panels and a wind generator. This framework also supports a 6m x 2.84m awning to provide respite from the tropical sun and a rain catching system.
Her basic statistics are as follows :-