Bavaria 32 Cruiser
Jarmo Koskivuori from Finland made the trip on a similarly sized but modern cruiser, a new-generation Bavaria 32.
‘Our first boat was only 18ft, so it’s a big trade up for us,’ he explains. The 32 Cruiser didn’t come equipped with all of the kit necessary for an ocean passage, but Jarmo and his wife have perhaps thought more carefully than most about how to adapt her for ocean passagemaking.
‘We’ve mounted a proper ocean-grade liferaft on the coachroof, and, as we’re sailing as a couple, we’ve also installed a simple MOB ladder that drops down the side of the yacht. We know it will work if we need to recover each other from the water. In terms of the yacht design, there are a couple of aspects that we had to consider. We decided to install an extra handrail in the saloon as that’s where the boat has the most internal width. There are other smaller things that we’ve adapted. Bavarias don’t come with red lights to preserve night vision, so we painted a battery lamp in the cockpit with red nail varnish for watches and put red stockings over the headlining lights. People might laugh, but it works brilliantly and we can just remove them when we’re island hopping in the Caribbean.’
Jarmo and his wife are planning to cross back to Europe under sail later in the year. They are going to take in Bermuda and the Azores on the way. ‘We’ll pick our weather window carefully, but we’ve always planned a full circuit.’