KAILANI
DEERFOOT 63
Kailani is a cutter rigged cruising sailboat with the heart of an ocean racer. A Deerfoot 63, this world-class ocean cruising sailboat was designed by Steve Dashew and built in 1990 by Salthouse Brothers in New Zealand. With a waterline of 60′ she is fast as well as sea kindly and safe. She is without a doubt a sailor’s boat first and foremost. Her light helm, deep keel and rudder and well thought out cutter rigged sail plan make her a joy to sail. Off the wind, daily logs of 200+ miles are common. She has surfed at 26 knots in the Indian Ocean, turns almost within her length, can heave-to under staysail and never fails to bring a smile to the face of first timers at the helm.
PROVEN DESIGN
Commissioned as a blue-water ocean cruising yacht by an experienced racing skipper back in 1988, she draws heavily on Dashew’s proven Deerfoot design, which culminated in the Deerfoot 61. This proven design includes the safety features of three watertight and separate compartments: the 15′ stowage locker on the bow (aka the “garage”), the 8′ engine room at the stern containing all her key machinery systems, and the 40′ living quarters in the center section of the hull. Kailani enjoys a little extra turn of speed due to the 2′ waterline extension from her sugar scoop, while her deeper draft and taller mast makes her stiffer to windward than her forebears.
PRACTICAL DESIGN
Her cockpit is designed for at-sea practicality and safety. Large cockpit drains, a battleship wheel and full-length cushioned benches under a waterproof dodger and bimini make for easy and dry watches. With all control lines led aft to the cockpit, and three electric powered winches, including the two large Lewmar 55 electric primary winches, she is easily handled by crew. Kailani’s engine room, with its 100 hp Yanmar diesel engine, is accessed through the cockpit lazarettes. In addition to adding waterline and hence speed, the sugar scoop provides access to the steering quadrant and propane lockers through custom designed hinging lazarette swing doors.
SAFETY
Safety equipment includes a 406 EPIRB and a Revere Offshore Elite six-man life raft. Her primary ground tackle is a 55 kg Rocna anchor shackled to 200 feet of 3/8 high-test chain on an electric windlass with an additional 300 feet of nylon rode. She also has 85-lb and 45-lb Fortress anchors with a combination of chain and rode as secondary ground tackle.
Nav and Comms
Navigation data is obtained through a fixed mounted GPS supplemented by two portable units with position information recorded in the log and on paper charts. We primarily use electronic charts, which are on multiple computers and tablets for redundancy. Weather and tracking information is provided through our Iridium Go satellite connection, which is also provides a sat phone for emergencies and shore communication. Additional electronics include radar, AIS, SSB radio and VHF radios.
Considerations
Ocean passage making can severely test marine systems, and breakdowns and failures are not uncommon even with carefully planned preventative maintenance. Kailani carries an extensive inventory of spare parts and tools and her regular crew is skilled at making repairs at sea, but not all breakdowns are thus repairable. The essence of ocean passage making, however, is self reliance, and irreparable system failures provide opportunities for critical decision making.
Sweet Sailing
To see Kailani in her element, check out this video shot by one of her crew on her 2010 Atlantic Crossing.
During ocean passages she is configured to sleep 5 including the captain, first mate and three participating crew members.
Systems
To make it all work, we have a generator, solar, wind, lithium battery bank, a 100 hp Yanmar diesel engine, autopilots, SSB and VHF radios, sat phone, AIS, and radar. We comfortably carry our 9′ Dyer Dow dinghy up on deck under the boom on passage, as well stowing it there at night while at anchor. Our workhorse dinghy is an 11′ roll-up hypalon dinghy that stows up in the garage while crossing oceans, and gets deployed during our cruising times when speed and cargo loads are a priority.
DOWN BELOW
Finally, the living space down below. A frequent response from visiting fellow cruisers and landlubbers alike is “Wow! It’s like an apartment down here!”(okay, maybe it is mostly the fellow cruisers from smaller boats …). We find we have most of the creature comforts we enjoy at home, minus a fireplace, bathtub, and rows upon rows of bookshelves. Kailani is essentially a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, just really shrunken down. She has refrigeration/freezer, washer dryer, A/C, heat and a water maker.
The main stateroom forward features a king size pullman berth, with its two forward hatches maximizing air flow throughout the boat. The main salon has two more large hatches to provide air flow, and its settees are extra long, making ideal passage-making bunks. The galley features a gimbaled propane stove, microwave and an athwartship dual sink. There are two aft cabins with a total of three twin bunks, and an aft head which has a shower / wet locker for hanging sailing gear. Finally, her joinery below is foam core with a teak laminate, keeping her interior wood finishes timelessly beautiful while allowing her to float a bit above her waterline. In short, no attention to detail was spared.
join us
We have sailed over 80,000 nm and circumnavigated the globe with Kailani one and half times. Come see what it’s all about!