Isabella is 9.3 meter steel hulled Van De Stadt Vita. She was built in 2008 by some bloke who purchased her in kit form and welded her together. This sounds dodgy to me. But I choose to believe that this boke had some mad skills when it came to welding and she hasn’t sunk yet so he can’t have been that bad.
I did some research and there are people out there who say that Ericus Van De Stadt never designed a bad boat. Reading this made me extremely excited. But once I bought the boat I did some more research and found out that Ericus Van De Stadt died before this boat was designed. This curbed my enthusiasm somewhat. But then I am not a sailor so she could move through the water with all the grace of a concrete mellon and I wouldn’t really know. So far however I have found her to display nothing but the most admirable ability to traverse the sea in exactly the way you imagine a boat should.
Isabella has a few sails and a shed load of electrical equiptment to help me not get lost or hit anything. But what I really like is the skylight in the forward berth. I could lay in that berth looking up at the sky for hours. It’s one of the main reasons I bought her. And yes I know all boats have these, but this one is particularly comfy.
Of the two deciding factors (the first being the skylight) the second and perhaps more important was the fact she has the main bedroom at the front and the toilet (heads) at the back. Most other boats I saw had the toilet located next to the forepeak bedroom which effectively meant you were sleeping with your head in the shitter. I didn’t really like that thought and I am sure if you think about it a little you wouldn’t either. All boats with this dreadful bed/toilet configuration were imediatly struck from my list of potentials. That left a list of one.
If this all sounds like a rather arbitary way of deciding on a boat then I can asure you it definetly is. But then I firmly believe most decision we make are arbitary so I am just sticking with the trend.
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