What’s in a name…. 

Katherine was named after the town in the Northern Territory where we spent our first years together, raised our children and started our business. When the idea was formulated to build a world cruiser and shift our focus from land based to the water then the name became the obvious choice to us.

What were we thinking… 

Some people may ask why an X65 for 2 people as a world cruiser but Andrew wanted a garage for the dinghy! After sailing for a couple of years on our X50 and a 5 week trip 2 up planning our next stage in life we formulated a wish list. Life has been good to us so we decided to put our plans into action and started the search for the perfect boat (ha). We looked at many makes and visited the boat shows in Europe and Australia again but finally came back to the make we know well after 2 previous X-Yachts. With X-Yachts just launching their 5th X65 in just a year or so we decided to go sailing and test one. After some discussion with the designers about possible modification of the Keel and some other minor changes to suit our purpose the answer came back that it was all possible and we moved forward with the design.

Fast forward to today....May 2023

In 10 years we have clocked up just on 35000nm. We have cruised The Baltic, crossed to the Caribbean but decided it looked too much like home so shipped back to England. Sailed above the Arctic Circle, marveled at fjords in Norway, the strength of humanity on the Isle of St Kilda, circumnavigated Ireland and the UK, crossed the North sea too many times for Lee's liking, sailed the coastline of the English Channel and through the Kiel Canal, and in 2016 the Atlantic Coastline from France to Gibraltar. 2017 saw us complete our first circumnavigation of the Mediterranean, while 2018 saw a more reduced sail of the Spanish Border from Cartagena to the French Border.

In 2019 we farewelled our favorite country of Spain and set our sails east, the cruising area of the Adriatic set to be explored. We discovered  a beauty of Sardinia before not appreciated, the Greek Ionian Islands and the magic of Albania.

Unfortunately in 2020 like the rest of the world our world was turned upside down and Andrew only returned to Katherine in 2021 to move her from Ragusa in Sicily, to her new winter base of Olympic Marine in Lavrio Greece.

2022 we discovered first hand why people love sailing in Greece. The handful of islands we explored during our short 12 week season was inspiring enough for us to look forward to extending our time in the Cyclades and hopefully further east during 2023.

Throw in assisting a yacht in 2014 from Panama to Galapagos then across the Pacific to Hiva Ova we have certainly covered some miles on the ocean both onboard Katherine and other yachts.

We have and continue to be in awe of the history, nature, wildlife, food and the people we have met along the way.

Happy to be back onboard and continuing our journey of discovery on Katherine.