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Mark and Gingah Milnes, Lilyanna 38'
Ever since I was a young teenager I had this dream of sailing my own boat around the world. While I was in the navy I had the chance to do a circumnavigation on an old WWII converted destroyer escort. When I came up to the bridge to stand my watches, I would look out and imagine what it would be like in a small sailboat. 95% of the time it would have been fine, 5% of the time it would have been hell, but survivable (mostly in the southern ocean).
As I approached retirement age, I began thinking about the type of boat I would purchase. My wife has a tendency to get seasick, but after spending a week in the Bahamas on a friends catamaran she announced " I could do this".
That was all the encouragement I needed to start looking seriously at cats. After attending the Miami Strictly Sail Show, armed with a short list of boats I had researched, I decided to have a look at the other cats at the show. After seeing the Admiral 38 TEE TIME and talking to CEO David Bird and owners John and Juanita Bendele, who had just arrived from Cape Town (their first sailing trip), I stayed up all night compiling a spread sheet of all of the possible choices, Comparing the base boat prices, with all of the optional equipment that we would require.
The next day we went back and inspected the Admiral more thoroughly and on the third day we signed a contract. Not only did the Admiral have all of the equipment we needed as standard equipment, but they flew us to Cape Town, put us up in a luxurious condo on the beach for a month, while you get to go to the factory every day and see your boat being finished, pick out all of the colors, choices of wood cladding and trim, cushions, see the engines and generator installed, check all of the plumbing and electric installation. They also provided a delivery captain for the trip home all for a lot less money than their competition charges for a base boat.
Having raced performance monohulls most of my life, a boat that would sail well was very important. The Admiral 38 is well built ,has a spacious cockpit ,salon, and staterooms, and the executive model comes standard with all the electronics, auto pilot, radar, ssb, generator, water maker, solar panels, air conditioning, and a fridge and freezer.
We made the trip back from Cape Town to Ft. Lauderdale (approx.7500 mi.) in 43 sailing days, including 1,800 miles in 9 days, that is averaging over 200 miles per day for 9 consecutive days. We flew the a-symmetrical spinnaker all the way from St. Helena Island to Fortalisa, Brazil and only took it down once to check for chafe and let a storm go by while we ate our meal of fresh caught fish.
For anyone considering a cruising catamaran, they could not do better than a Admiral for a sea kindly, fast, strong yacht with great customer support after the sale.
cheers,
Mark and Gingah Milnes S/v LILYANNA
www.sailthefloridakeys.com
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