Our "new" boat is a 1976 Hatteras 48 LRC. LRC stands for Long Range Cruiser.
Almost everybody asks us "What does Adagio mean?"
In musical terms it means "Slow and Steady" or "Gracefully".
One of our favorite quotes:
Years from now
you will be more disappointed
by the things you did NOT do…
than by the ones you DID do.
So - throw off the bow lines!
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the tradewinds in your sails.
Explore!
Dream!
Discover!
~ Mark Twain
And one more that we like:
If you don't do it this year,
You will be one year old when you do it next year.
~ Warren Miller (ski film producer, and boater)
Now onto the boat itself:
The boat is a 1976 Hatteras 48 LRC. It is 48' long, but including bow pulpit and swimstep it is almost 55' long. The beam (or width) is 16' 6". The draft (or depth in the water) is 4.5'. Total weight is around 58,000 pounds. The weight can vary quite a bit depending on fuel, water, supplies, and beer :-) This is a heavy, slow boat and was designed from the keel up to handle most of the conditions you are likely to encounter in coastal and offshore cruising. These boats can go long distances to very remote places in complete safety. Several of our sisterships have crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and at least half of the 49 that were built have transited the Panama Canal, including ours, with a previous owner. Oh, we believe we are the 4th owner of this boat.
Propulsion power is provided by two 118hp normally aspirated diesel engines made by Detroit Diesel. These are old-technology, two-cycle diesels. The engines have been used in everything from dump trucks, , semi trucks, farm equipment, military tanks, remote oil-field generators, and boats. They are very easy to work on, with expert mechanics and parts available world-wide. They are extremely reliable and long lived motors. But, they aren't particularly fuel efficient or low on exhaust emissions (which is why they are no longer made). Our motors were recently rebuilt by the previous owner, who was at one time the distributor for Detroit Diesel parts for the entire west coast. He still runs his heavy equipment shop and a few years ago he had his mechanics rebuild the engines during a slow period for his business. Our motors should be good for at least 10,000 hours, or 100,000+ nautical miles. We certainly hope that our Detroit's live up to this long-lived reputation. The "Velvet Drive" transmissions have a 2.91:1 ratio and are made by Borg-Warner. These are rugged transmissions that should outlast the rest of the boat.
We have two diesel generators onboard Adagio. The small one is a 7.5KW Onan and the other is a 15KW Onan. They both provide 120/240 volt AC power like you have in your house when we have a big demand like cooking or electric heat. Otherwise, 120 volt AC power is supplied by a 2400 watt Magnum Energy inverter that converts 12 volt DC power to 120 volt AC power. We have 6 HUGE deep cycle industrial-grade batteries to draw 12 volt power from. They are Interstate UL16HC batteries. Our house battery bank has a 1200+ Ah capacity, which is a lot of electrical capacity. There is a separate battery for starting the main engines and generators.
We primarily heat the boat with a diesel hydronic heating system. It's pretty complex, but basically there is a diesel boiler that heats water which is then circulated through water lines that run throughout the boat. In each room there is a heat exchanger unit that pulls heat out of the water and blows it as hot air into the room. This is exactly what your car does for heat; it turns the hot antifreeze from the engine into hot air that blows into the passenger compartment. In our boat there are 4 different "zones" each with it’s own thermostat. There is no way we could go boating year-round without the diesel furnace. During winter we have sea-water temps in the mid-40's and overnight air temps near or below freezing. Inside our boat though it's a toasty 68-70 despite the cold environment outside.
The boat has four fuel tanks. Two in the keel, and two in front of the engines in the engine room. They are made of fiberglass, which means we should never have corrosion issues with our tanks. They should last forever! The total fuel capacity is just under 1400 gallons, which can take us more than 2500 nautical miles at the rapid pace of 8 knots. Shutdown one engine, slow to 6.9 knots, and we can go almost 3,500 miles before needing to visit a fuel dock. Theoretically we could easily make the non-stop passage from San Diego to Hawaii. Yes, it is painful to visit the fuel docks!
We have 450 gallons of fresh water on board for drinking, sinks, showers, one of the toilets, and even a washdown hose to clean off dirty feet when returning from shore. 400 gallons is enough to keep us going for more than a month if we are VERY conservative.
There are two heads (bathrooms) each with a toilet. I installed both toilets after we bought the boat, and selected each one for its individual merits. One toilet is a nice modern electric unit. Push a button to flush. Very easy to use and understand, especially for our non-boating guests. The other is a very simple and reliable manual toilet. This means you have to pump it when you are done. It uses seawater (not freshwater). So, this is a toilet that should be usable no matter what! If we get hit by lightning and lose our electrical system, or we run out of fresh water, this manual sea-water toilet will still work. The toilet can even be diverted to dump directly overboard instead of going into the holding tank first. This is allowed offshore, but I did it this way primarily so that this toilet will work, no matter what. If the holding tank pump breaks this toilet can still dump overboard. The sewage holding tank is 80 gallons which lasts the four of us a couple of weeks before we have to empty the holding tank.
In the galley we have a microwave, an oven, a propane cooktop, two refrigerators (one with a very small freezer). We recently installed an ultra-efficient chest style freezer in the galley. It can keep items frozen for days, and only requires about an hour a day of generator time to keep it going. It is super insulated and draws no electricity except during that one hour a day "recharge" period. We have a trash compactor which I installed in the galley back in 2012. A trash compactor is great on a boat, as garbage becomes an issue when you have to carry it with you wherever you go.
The boat has two staterooms (bedrooms) with the master being a full-width room. It's HUGE (for a boat). We just finished remodeling both rooms. The master stateroom now features a walk-around queen size bed coming off the port side, and two bunk beds on the starboard side that can be easily converted into a couch. The vee berth now has three levels and can sleep 4 people very comfortably. There are great storage cubbies all over. It's a "cool" room; the kids love it!
Our main living area is called the Salon and it is quite large. This is where we eat most meals, play games, read, do crafts with the kids, watch movies on our big screen (with surround sound), etc. Most driving/piloting is done from the pilothouse. It has a great view forward and to the sides, but not much out the back. We will be installing a rear facing camera so we can monitor the action behind us all the time without having to leave the helm.
Up a set of stairs outside the pilothouse you arrive at the boat deck, which is just above the salon. This is where we store our 12' hard bottom inflatable dinghy. There is quite a bit of room up here and we store our two kayaks up here. There is a crane to raise and lower the dinghy. Up a few more steps from the boat deck, and directly above the pilothouse, is the flybridge. The flybridge has another steering station (the upper helm). We have seating for about 6 people up there. Our propane and dinghy-gas storage locker is here too. It is a great place to go when the weather is nice. It is quite high off the water so the view is simply fantastic, and unobstructed.
