The boat

The boat

Jocara is a Fibreglass cutter-rigged sloop built at Orams' yard in Whangerei, New Zealand in 1974. She is 18m in length oveall (15.8m on deck) and of 25 tons displacement with a traditional long encapsulated keel, easily capable of handling open ocean voyages. She is a very-well equipped blue-water cruising vessel of proven stamina.

Jocara has a 6-cylinder 120 hp auxiliary engine with large (1100 litre) diesel tankage that allows her to motor for extensive periods in the absence of wind, allowing her to meet schedules whatever the weather and forego bunkering for periods up to several months.

Jocara has a watermaker, solar panel, radar, 3 x GPS navigation systems, chart-plotter, 2 x Autopilots, HF, VHF and UHF radios, 2 x Depthsounders, a forward-looking multibeam sonar that is capable of sidescan mode for finding wrecks, and much more.

To fit Jocara for this research quest, we have added a generator, dive compressor, bow camera, still and video imaging capabilities, wireless communications, an iMac desktop computer to generate QuickTime movies and WebPages and a PC laptop for email and other scientific equipment that enhances her contributions to the research groups we interact with.

For more information on the equipment on board, see the equipment pages.

Welcome below-decks

The aft cabin where John and Caroline sleep

Casper's bunk

Alex's bunk

The bathroom with the heads (toilet) and shower (which we don't use because the litter box for the cats stands there, we shower outside on the aft deck).

The galley (kitchen) with a gimballed stove and oven.

The saloon where the kids usually do their school work.

Sofa opposite the saloon where Caro sleeps when we're on passage.

Computer and radio station, also passageway to the aft cabin.