Welcome again to the Adventures of Little Fish Blog about our life and adventures aboard our new (to us) Nordhavn 55 hull 36 passage making yacht on the East Coast named Orenda. Our core crew includes Scott and Abby but our blog chronicles friends, visiting crew, pets, special friends we have met and and those “friends we haven’t met yet”. We have enjoyed and are excited to share more of our wonderful experiences as well as the trials and tribulations we experience with the full-time cruising life.

The Nordhavn 55 is a long-range, full-displacement passage maker, just like the our Nordhavn 47. We loved our 47 but more living space and more conveniences were appealing to us and for our guests during off-shore cruising. The hull speed of a 55 is a little faster and has redundancy which is important for cruising remote areas. She has two generators, two water makers, is a full hydraulic boat (bow and stern thrusters, windless, anchor wash, stabilizers and crash pump). The pilothouse has a “captains” berth for use during overnight passages and is within calling distance of the pilothouse helm. It also provides an additional berth and head for guests!

We hear folks say “Nordhavns can go anywhere” and this is true. More than a few Nordhavns have successfully circumnavigated the world including a 40-footer which was crewed by Pacific Asian Enterprises employees, 26,000 miles! Many Nordhavns of all sizes have crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Orenda has a Lugger L1276A continuous duty main engine rated at 340 hp.  This Lugger is a marinized John Deere base engine   She also has a Lugger L944D “get-home” wing engine that will move us if we have any problems with the main engine.  She has two Northern Lights generators, 20KW and 8KW. Nordhavns 55s typically cruise at about 8 knots and can max out around 10 knots.

We cruised our Nordhavn 47, hull 17 Epoch to Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, including the west coast of Vancouver Island, the west coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, the Mexico Baja and the state of Jalisco, Mexico on the main land.

Now, we are on the east coast for most likely a couple of years but have longer range plans to return to West Coast via the Panama Canal!