And now on an historical note… Quo Vadis (Latin: ‘wither goest thou’ ) is a 13.5 metre cruising yacht, after the Lidgard 44 (Reward) design. The original Reward was designed and built by John Lidgard in 1985, he and his wife Heather sailed it extensively including doing the 2-handed Melbourne to Osaka Race in 1987 and winning it by some days.
There have been a number of yachts built off the plans since then, they are scattered around the globe.
Basic Specifications: Length overall 13.5 m
Length waterline 11.125m
Beam 4m
Draught 1.8m
Displacement 13 t
Ballast 4.5t
Quo Vadis’ building was started around Easter 1994 at Dickson Marine in Nelson, to those original plans but with our modifications to the interior.
The hull is of new cut Kauri strip-plank, a longitudunal layer of 40x25mm with a second, diagonal layer of 8mm, edge-nailed, glued and copper-riveted to Kauri laminated frames and floors
The exterior was then covered with a single layer of fibreglass.
The interior fit-out proceded, the joinery work using teak
While the cabin-top of Kauri ply was assembled and finished off the boat
before all coming together
A concrete mould was made from a wooden ‘plug’ in which to cast the 4.5 tonnes of lead for the elongated fin keel which was attached to a solid, laminated kauri stub to be later bolted to the hull.
The rudder is of solid Kauri on either side of this stainless ‘skeleton’ and has a full-length solid Kauri skeg.
After what seemed an eternity, but in fact was 14,500 man hours of work, the fit out was completed, the interior painted and finished, the rig and deckgear assembled
she was ready for launching…
and at 4pm. on July 22, 1995, -with all due celebration before and after…
Over the near 10 years since, the vessel is little changed, although she is now considerably fuller, and the waterline has had to be raised; but just once so far…
She has proved to be a very comfortable, relatively fast cruising yacht and there’s little we would change were we building her again. We like to think of her as a strong, seaworthy boat and have tried to keep her fairly basic, uncluttered with ‘systems’ prone to failure.
We have a: Sloop rig with 2 furling staysails, a boom furling mainsail and a spinnaker
Yanmar 50hp engine
Diesel 420litres capacity
Water 660 litres capacity
12v Glacier Bay frig and freezer unit
PUR watermaker 25 litres per hour
Brookes and Gatehouse instruments and autopilot
All the neccessary electronics, radar, GPS, weatherfax, VHF, SSB radios, email by iridium phone, inmarsatC and AIS for safe navigation and communication
Back-up power generation from solar panels and wind generator
Liferaft
Parachute sea-anchor
and: for ocean passaging, a bolt-on, Windpilot windvane/auxilliary rudder steering system.
-although to many ‘old salts’ I’m sure this inventory would seem rather more than ‘basic’….
