Two Endurance 37 yachts,seen here in Hout Bays marina.
If ever a designer hit the sweet spot with a design,it was
Peter Ibold's Endurance 37' in GRP,some of you may not know that Peter won a 'Cruising World' magazine competition,his Endurance 35' design in ferro cement was the top choice (how long ago was that?) the Endurance 37' followed,then a 40,47 and others much larger too,eventually he came up with an Endurance 37 plus,it was quite a different boat,with a split keel/rudder,no bowsprit and much shorter overhangs,so a faster boat.We have owned two Endurance 37 designs,Ocean Cloud is one of them,seen here with another,Song of Grace,we are moored on the Hout Bay Yacht Clubs marina here in the Cape Town area.
Why you may ask am I mentioning a boat that CKD Boats does not make,well this was where I started with my own boat ownership,one 'Ocean Planet' I built from a bare hull and cockpit moulding set,the other 'Ocean Cloud' was taken off the rocks at Slankop,on the far side of Hout Bay,that was a repair project for some fifty one weeks (51) when I had the huge pleasure of relaunching her in Hout Bay Harbour.
In the end I sailed each boat across the South Atlantic Ocean,boat number
one 'Ocean Planet'was from Rio de Janerio to Cape Town (Saldahna)the trip there was when she went as 'Tal Gal' in the Uraguay Race,it was my job to sail her back, which I did with my very good friend Notty (32 days).The other trip on 'Ocean Cloud', was from Cape Town to Salvador,Brasil,again with Notty on board as navigator and chef (hes a good guy) plus Nottys daughter Simone (Sam) and our mutual friend John Holmes, we stopped at St Helena and Ascension islands and we really had a great trip,Notty can supply an updated DVD of that and the first trip,let me know if you want a copy,at cost plus postage and packing.After two ocean crossings on similar boats, I eventually woke up to the fact that as nice as these boats are,they are slow by todays standards,hull speed is about 6.25 knots,so anything over 7 knots is seen to be fast,over 8.5 knots and its time to slow down! they also have the habit of pitching when in a seaway,our new boat the Dix 43 'Flying Cloud' has none of these faults,she is really fast and ultra stable.
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