It is official! Delfin is a 1998 Hunter 410 currently berthed in Kennedy Point Yacht Club just south of Titusville, FL. We took ownership of her and she of us on June 17, 2023. She was officially christened the following day.
Why this boat?
As with everything, there are tradeoffs. Some of our must-haves:
- Easy to handle – This is no time for a tall ship with three masts and nine sails. She is a simple sloop-rigged boat. A furling jib forward and a mainsail. We do have an asymmetrical spinnaker to get out at some point. (For the uninitiated, that is one of the big, colorful balloon-like sails. Ours is pink and gray.) All lines are led to the cockpit; there are reasons to go forward under normal conditions when sailing.
- Ample headroom – Doug (6’4″ tall) has full standing room with a bit of extra through most of the belowdecks areas and under the bimini.
- A sugar-scoop entry – There is a swim ladder, but you don’t have to climb a second ladder once out of the water. We want to be active in the water (swimming, snorkeling, scuba, paddle boarding and so on.) Plus, in the situation a dog goes overboard, it is easier for them to self-rescue once we get some sort of floating mat and go through training them.
- Ready-to-sail – More of a per-boat state than based on the make and model. We needed to be able to move aboard in short order since hotels are 1. expensive, 2. don’t have good coffee, 3. are overrun with people on the weekends. There are always things to fix or improve, but the number of issues found with Delfin during her survey was short. (Never mind that we found some leaks to look into during our first heavy thunderstorm.)
- Layout – We like the aft owner’s cabin. There is plenty of room to stretch out and even though not an island queen, it is easy to get into. The whole boat is open and airy; you don’t get a sense of claustrophobia when moving around. This is our home, our office and our guest house (sometimes). Our outdoor activities take up space and she has the storage and amenities to support them.
What’s in a name?
The name has been a closely-guarded secret for several years and was only announced at Cindy’s graduation party when we kicked off the blog. Precious few knew her eventual name and were either sworn to secrecy or had no idea that they knew the name (Khloe). Cindy likes dolphins almost as much as Crew and Doug has Danish ancestry. A little bit of Google-fu and you find that delfin is the Danish word for dolphin. We hope not to only see many dolphins on our travels, but that Delfin lives up to her namesake and efficiently glides through the seas.
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy