She is 13.6 Meters long and 7.8 meters wide, with a draught of just under 1 meter. Designed by Derek Kelsall, She was built by Geoffrey Partington at Glasson Dock, Liverpool in the UK.
About Double Helix
Double Helix is a Kelsall 45 catamaran. She was built / launched in 1997 in Liverpool, and then sold in 2005 in Almerimar – Spain. We bought her in April 2007 in Almerimar.
She is 13.6 Meters long and 7.8 meters wide, with a draught of just under 1 meter. Designed by Derek Kelsall, She was built by Geoffrey Partington at Glasson Dock, Liverpool in the UK.
The hull and superstructure are made of foam sandwich construction, and weighs 8.5 tonnes.
She has two Perkins 3 cylinder engines they are 30 HP each and they drive 2 bladed folding propellers via perama sonic sail drives. We also have a Nobel bow thruster on the port side.
She is sloop rigged, with a rollerfurling foresail (facnor furling gear), and a fully battened mainsail. She also has an attractive stripy cruising chute! The mast has steps.
There are two trampolines hung from stainless frames (frames and trampolines new September 2007).
Tankage – we can carry 100 gallons of water in two tanks, and a total of 100 gallons of diesel in 4 tanks (2 x 40 gallon flexible tanks ((new Feb 2008)) and 2 x 10 gallon header tanks).
Electrics – We have 2 x 130 watts solar panels (new December 2007) and an Air Marine wind generator. The batteries and power supply are managed by a flashy heart interface invertor / charger.
Anchors – we carry 3 anchors. A Stainless CQR, a Danforth, and an aluminium Danforth. The anchor windlass is a 1200 watt Lofrans Tigre (new Demeber 2007). We have 70 meters of 10mm chain, and 70 meters of rope. We also use an anchor bridle (spliced beautifully!)
Steering – Vetus hydraulic steering (new Feb 2008) and Navman autopilot (new Feb 2008)
Instruments – 3 x Garmin GPS (2 fixed and 1 hand held), Raymarine wind, depth and log instruments, target SSB receiver, GRC radar, radar reflector, 2 x Icom VHF (1 fixed, 1 hand held), navtext receiver.
Comfort! – radio CD player (12 volt – new Jan 2008), 3 ring gas hob, gas oven and grill, 12 volt frigiboat fridge (serviced Feb 2008).
We have a laptop PC which we use for navigation, internet weather, emails etc, watching DVDs, and all the usual rubbish.
Heating and Hot water – we have a Trumatic heating and water heating system, which uses gas.
Runabout – our dingy is a Yam 250 rib, with a Yamaha 5HP 4stroke outboard engine. (it is called little helix come back.)