Evohe’s expeditions

Evohe has earned respect. Her staunch steel hull has shouldered its way through the short, steep waves of the North Sea, crunched through floe ice in the Northwest Passage and kept her crew safe in wild weather off Cape Horn and the Southern Ocean.

The 25m staysail ketch’s log books read like travelogues to some of the furthest-flung places on the planet – she is named after the song of the wind, from writings of the classical poet Horace.

But the story starts at the De Wachter shipyard in Antwerp, Belgium where the yacht was built to a design by A Defrere in 1979. With a beam of 6.9m and draught of 3m she was as much a little ship as a yacht. Motive power to drive the 80-tonne ship is supplied by two 135hp six-cylinder Ford diesels.

Evohe’s cosy cabins and spacious saloon is fitted out with kauri paneling. The craftsmanship in the small wheelhouse gives her an ambience of adventure, like an ocean-going high country hut.

She spent most of her first five years alongside a dock in Dunkirk, northern France before owner/skipper Steve Kafka bought her in 1984.

“We considered buying a bus for an extensive family tour before deciding on Evohe, which would become our home for the next nine years. Within a few months we were off on a world voyage.”

After sailing from Europe to South America and the Caribbean it became obvious that Evohe would have to earn her keep. With sleeping space for 19 people, a spacious galley and storage space with ample tankage, she became a small sail-training ship, teaching young people the skills and satisfaction of a seafaring lifestyle.

In 1988 the Cook Island government chartered Evohe to deliver people and goods between Rarotonga and the Northern Group. At the end of 1989 she was part of a Greenpeace/earthtrust anti-driftnet campaign in the Tasman Sea. Since 1990 she’s been used for natural history filming expeditions for TVNZ’S Natural History Unit, the BBC, NHK, PBS and others.

In 2000 she successfully navigated the Northwest passage from Alaska to Greenland. And four months later she was back in the ice for an NHK

2 aluminium RIBS, 3 x Yamaha outboards, watermaker, 2 x dive compressors, a microlight aircraft