Sea Essay is a three cabin, two heads version of the Dufour 390 delivered in 2022. She is equipped and coded for a crew of 8 to sail up to 60 miles from a safe haven. She is maintained by a dedicated team of volunteers, the Yacht Husband Team, and is made available to members at all skill levels for introductory day sails, Sea Time / cruises, training and private charters.
The layout is as shown in the diagram below.
Equipment fit
The yacht complies with the requirements of the Code of Practice for the Safety of Small Commercial Vessels and is equipped with all the required safety equipment. The yacht is coded to Category 2, i.e. up to 60 miles from a safe haven and can have up to eight people on board. She came with an array of B&G instruments to which an extensive set of electronic systems have been added and integrated, over a NMEA 2000 network.
The electronic systems include :
- A Raymarine Hybrid Touch Multi-Function Display (Lighthouse v3)
- Raymarine 18” 4kW Radar
- AIS-B Transceiver
- Nav6 Navtex
- Icom M323 VHF/DSC Radio (manual)
- Raymarine Autopilot
For the 2023 season we have a larger tender and an electric outboard.
- Quick Reference Page with key facts about Sea Essay
- Some photos to help familiarize yourself with the yacht
- Marine Electronics – Sea Essay Schematic (TBD) – (PDF download)
Stowage Diagram
See last page of Skipper’s Newsletter -SNL 2023-01)
Handover / Cleaning of the Yacht
The routine cleaning of the yacht is the responsibility of outgoing crews and skippers and is not the responsibility of the the Yacht Husband Team. Skippers must ensure that they allow enough time at the end of a trip for this to be done. A Close-down Checklist can be found in the Operations Manual. The maxim should be for crews to leave the yacht in a better condition than when they found it.
Defect / damage reporting
As a Club yacht, with many different skippers and crews, it is important that faults, damage and losses, together with details of any repairs made, are reported to the Yacht Husband at the end of each cruise using the Handover Clearance Notes system in place.
Find out more about the Yacht Husband Team
Previous incarnations of Sea Essay were:
- 2015-2021 Sea Essay of Hamble (Jeanneau S409)
- 2009-2015 Sea Essay (Dufour 405)
- 2003-2008 ? Sea Essay (Sun Oddysey 360?)
- 1997 ?
- 1991 ?