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Nereus has been extensively refurbished in past months. Designed by Robert van Dam, she had only one previous owner, a Swiss who commissioned her from the famous Nordia yard at Aalsmeer, Holland, perhaps the leading builders of steel yachts for the past fifty years, and personally oversaw her construction. Everything necessary for world cruising is aboard and working, together with plenty of equipment to make her comfortable, safe and efficient. With sensible continuing maintenance, I believe this is a vessel which will be in good shape for many more years, without further depreciation in value. Nereus is set up for diving, with a compressor installed in the engine room and a locker for bottles and dive gear. Stainless ladders set into either side of the hull are an unusual and valuable feature for boarding, swimming, diving and safety. The dependable 125 hp Volvo engine drives her at 8 1/2 knots at 1600 revs, and under sail she exceeds 10 knots in good conditions. She balances well and keeps going in heavy weather better than most. I installed a 180 kg Maxpower bowthruster which makes Nereus easy to manoeuvre in even the tightest harbour - and to get off quays to windward. Her ground tackle (four anchors on board) has proved itself adequate over a thousand times. The Leisurefurl in-boom mainsail system from New Zealand, which was personally fitted by its designer Rick Hackett, is the best main system yet invented, superior in my view to all in-mast arrangements as the weight is kept low and the sail is fully battened. Fully-battening the mizzen, too, has added additional drive, and the lazy jacks and lazy bag recently installed make it easy to hand. All sails are in good condition. The standing rigging was entirely renewed a few years ago. A Lewmar electric winch drives the main halyard and furling line, both led to the cockpit, and is useful for other purposes such as hoisting the bosun’s chair and warping in. A wandering electric winch handle is available for other cockpit winches. Nereus carries no gas, a safety feature which has the bonus of never having to find and lug refills back from afar. The Onan generator provides plenty of power, including running the Bauer dive compressor. Separate pumps power sea-water deck wash, fresh water deck shower, the fridge and freezer, the air-conditioning, the holding tanks and bilges, and the pressurised hot and cold fresh water. Her tanks are capacious: 2,000 litres of fresh water and a ton and a half of diesel, enough for over fourteen hundred miles, which allows bunkering where fuel is cheapest. She has generous locker space to carry say a hundred of litres of drinking water in bottles, and indeed for all the other clobber which inevitably accumulates on board a sailing vessel. The hull was sandblasted below the waterline and recoated with the French Sicomin system in July 2006, finished with three/four coats of Techno antifoul. The topsides were blasted and coated in New Zealand in 2002 with Altex system fairings and paints, which I find preferable to the widely used Awlgrip. Luxury yacht builders and many production yards specify teak decks which they perceive as necessary to sell new boats. Experienced designers and owners of steel boats know, however, that installing wood over steel is a bad idea. Water penetration is eventually inevitable, and rust will follow. Nereus has a sparkling white epoxy-system deck which looks terrific, needs little maintenance, protects the steel substrate, and has the invaluable bonus of reflecting most of the sun’s heat. It remains cool underfoot on days when teak burns the soles of one’s bare feet, and it keeps the interior much cooler too. It’s a big improvement. The steel sub-floor of the cockpit has been cut out and replaced with stainless, which has dealt with corrosion stemming from an original design fault of the boat. I also got rid of cement ballast and replaced it with lead and bitumen. Nereus is laid out with twin berths in the forward cabin, bunks top and bottom in the port midships cabin, which has a shower room with heads opposite, and twin berths in the large stateroom which occupies the aft end of the boat together with its own shower room with electric heads. Forward of the stateroom, to starboard, is an upper level passage berth, with washing machine and vegetable storage area below. Opposite this is a large engine room containing the main engine, the generator, the dive compressor, the refrigeration unit, the hot water cylinder, and various smaller equipment. The centre of the vessel is taken up with a big saloon, which has circular seating for about eight round the lovely rosewood table, and 2.25 metre headroom - another element keeping her comfortably cool under hot sunshine. The galley leads off the saloon on the starboard side, and the chart table is forward of the galley. The layout has proved extremely convenient and well planned. Sailing instruments and transducers were replaced in 2006 with Raymarine ST60+, and the Raytheon radar scanner in 2005. The panel also contains a back-up depth instrument, and two heavy-duty autopilots, an old Neco and a more modern C-tronix. The Leica GPS (branded Magnavox) is among the best, so also the Icom M710 SSB. The Sailor VHF is old but tough and excellent. A Pactor III connected through the SSB provides us with e-mail, GRIBs and weatherfax access. A Sanyo set (negotiable) gives about 50 radio channels on Worldspace satellite radio. There are, incidentally, manufacturers’ manuals for virtually all the mechanical, electronic and electrical equipment on board. The dinghy is a Novurania RIB and, though not new (1992), is the best. It was refurbished in 2006. It may be left on the davits with an outboard in place, though we prefer to put the engines on brackets when on passage. The aluminium and teak passarelle is stored flat on the large aft deck against the rail, with two kayaks fitting snugly on top of it. Nereus is a Nordia 51, a technical measurement. Her overall length is 57 feet, or about 64 feet including the bowsprit and davits. 57 feet has been acceptable by marinas as the charging basis. She weighs in at about 30 tons, and draws a modest 2.2 metres. Her integral keel is long and extremely strong, quite unlike the bolt-on fin keels which can prove so delicate in a grounding. The rudder is very robust too, with no hanging skeg to cause problems.
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