About Holy Grail (page two)
Just a word about HOLY GRAIL and us. We are Stephanie (Admiral) and Howard (Captain and writer of this blog), and we have been obsessed with sailing and cruising for a long time. You won’t find much about racing in this blog because we have always focused on the dual arts of living aboard, and exploring under sail, the essence of searching for the Holy Grail. Before the boat HOLY GRAIL, we sailed DULCINEA, our 32′ Sparkman & Stephens steel Crusader class sloop from Southern California through Mexico and Central America to Panama and on to the Galapagos, Marquesis, Tuamotus, and Tahiti. Finally on that cruise we arrived in New Zealand before returning to California. That cruise was years of sheer bliss and great practice in searching for… you guessed it, the Holy Grail.
Back in the U.S., we looked and looked for a larger used aluminum boat as a replacement for Dulcinea, but found nothing even remotely suitable. Our wish list was pages long and represented everything we learned over the past twenty plus years of messing about in boats. It takes a book full of notes collected over quite a time to create the complete picture of your dream boat. And that is how Holy Grail was born, the third and last of our cruising boats. We really never intended to build a boat, only to acquire a used aluminum cutter in the 45 foot range. (See Why Aluminum?) We concentrated on speed and stability, size and carrying capacity, comfort and longevity, especially the longevity of the crew to be able to live aboard without becoming burned out by hardship and sacrifice. Living aboard can be hard, but does not have to be; cruising can be hard but also does not need to be. Our boat notebook focused on what we might need to be able to continue sailing well into middle and old age.
Charles Wittholz drew the original lines, and Michael Kaufman revised the specifications for aluminum construction. Kaufman Associates then completed for us the plans for a flush deck 51′ pilot house cutter, with aft cabin, aft cockpit and a Sheel type wing keel, which is a fuel tank above the ballast. Fuel and water capacities are 475 and 310 gallons respectively. The hull is fully insulated and has five water tight compartments making her virtually unsinkable. Beginning aft there is a large lazarette for the steering gear and storage. Next is the aft cabin under the deck level cockpit. And right forward of that is the pilot house with steering station, nav table and settee. Amidships is the galley to port and large head to starboard. Ahead of the mast is the saloon which can seat 8 at the table and converts to a cabin sleeping 3. Finally, the forepeak is fitted as a workshop with metal workbench and storage for tools and spares.
With the plans completed the real work began! We settled on a small yard in British Columbia to build the hull, took delivery to our own rough shed, and for the next four years did nothing else but learn and build. We found a few skilled boat builders who did the work requiring the highest skills and they prevented us from making big mistakes. In all, of the 22,500 hours required for the project, we worked 15,000 hours ourselves.
All of a sudden, it’s time to stop buying tools, spares, and supplies and go sailing! It is a shock when, after so long, the moment clearly arrives when you realize that if you do not have it yet, you do not need it. It was such a change from the eight year mindset of planning, working, acquiring, and dreaming of becoming completely independent, completely off the grid, completely weaned of the city life you have always known. And it was finally time to go sailing.
