Anyway, so much for the present, let me give you a brief history of Blue-Belle to date. In 1987 I was looking for a long distance load carrier, big enough to cross an ocean comfortably, but small enough to be easily maintained. I purchased the boat plans of your Spray 33 and began building on the south coast of England.

Due to working abroad, I didn't launch her until 1992; I would probably estimate that as a full time build project to high standard of finish, she would take 2 to 2, 5 years for one man to complete. She is built in 4 mm steel and is hot metal sprayed with aluminum both inside and out. She is as per your version B boat plans a part from lengthening her to 34 feet on deck, in order to incorporate a double self stowing anchor roller assembly. Upon completion she was then stored ashore for a further four years while I was away earning the cruising fund.

Her maiden voyage was in the autumn of 1996 London to Antalya/Turkey aprx. 3500 miles single handed. I hadn't fitted any self steering as yet, so this first long passage was a good test of the Spray's legendary self steering qualities. If you take care to balance the sails she will steer herself for amazingly long periods of time.
In Antalya my Wife and I were married and we moved on board to begin our full time cruising life style. Now I really did begin to appreciate the Spray's load carrying capability, I have never seen so much stuff poured into just one boat.

We spent two full seasons cruising the Med and in September 2000 departed Portugal for the Cape Verde Islands via the Canary Islands. December the 1st found us leaving Mindelo/Cabo Verde and bound for Barbados. We still didn't have any self steering fitted, but then again neither did Slocum. No problem. Blue-Belle took 16 days to make the 2037 mile crossing, that's an average of 127 miles per day. Her best days run being 147 miles. For a heavily laden cruising boat with a 28 ft water line she could certainly turn in a decent passage time. We were delighted with her. We also found that running downwind she didn't roll as much as other boats I'd sailed under similar conditions.

Maybe the chines have something to do with this. We spent the next 2,5 years cruising the Caribbean, Bahamas and the US Intracoastal Waterways. The Spray's shoal draft was paying dividends. June 2003 and we were on our way back across the Atlantic. We did purchase wind wane steering gear in the states, but were so busy being tourists, we didn't have time to fit it. I think that only the crew of a Spray would contemplate carrying their self steering gear as deck cargo prior to an Atlantic crossing.
Our North Atlantic Passage was the usual mix of gales, calms, and occasionally some decent sailing. However we ate well, slept well and apart from blowing out the genoa suffered no damage. In Spain my wife had to fly home to cover a family emergency. So once again I single handed to Turkey, finally arriving to the fabulous reception mentioned earlier. This winter we intend to haul out and I will finally get round to fitting the Wind vane and steering gear. For as my wife says "It will look so much nicer dear, hanging on the transom".

In conclusion we find the Spray to be a wonderful sea boat, and is a lot faster than she looks. When running in gale force conditions we find that our heavy weather staysail, sheeted flat amidships (a technique used by Slocum in his book) works well. The bow showing no tendency to dig in despite all the weight we carry up forward. One mistake we made in the early years was in reefing her down too early; the boat is very stiff and sails well in heavy weather. In storm conditions when it is more prudent to stop and we either heave to or lie to a parachute anchor streamed from the bow and attached to a bridle led back to a cockpit winch. In this manner we feel safe and secure. So, would we part with our Spray? Would we change her for something else? No - not ever. After 8 years and 35.000 miles we finally have our ultimate cruiser. Thanks Bruce, you gave us a great boat. Kindest regards,
Derek & Hulya
S/Y Blue-Belle