The Radford 19.1m Charter Yacht was designed for a Queensland client who had previously owned one of my earlier designs - an A15.2m "Valkyrie".
For the new yacht he wanted a much larger vessel for day and offshore charter work with lots of cockpit and deck space, plus a very shallow draft. The yacht was built by Aluminium and Steel Boats in Queensland to Marine Board approved plans for Class 1C charter.
The yacht has a number of watertight bulkheads to meet subdivision requirements. The construction is based on deep web frames and bulkheads at 2m spacing with intermediate extruded tee frames at 500mm spacing. There are also deep longitudinals and flat bar stringers. The hull plate is a combination of 4, 5 and 6mm with mostly 3mm plate on deck. The draft is only 1.37m (4'6") with the pivoting keel raised and 3.1m (10'2") when lowered. There is 2.6t of lead ballast in the pivoting keel with the balance of 6.4t in the shallow keel. The two equal height masts have swept back spreaders and reefing genoas with a main on the aft mast - designed mostly for reaching and running conditions.
There is an aft boarding platform giving easy access to the large aft cockpit with steering wheel and all round seating. A centre hatch, located in the steering pedestal, leads to the aft watertight compartment and steering gear. The centre cockpit has a cuddy cabin for weather protection for the cockpit and main companionway. Coamings around the forward mast incorporate dorade vents, hatches, halyard tailing boxes and winch coamings.
Nina Q1 has been chartered extensively in Queensland and the Northern Territory and has also competed in a number of long offshore races including the Darwin - Ambon Race, Brisbane - Osaka Race and the 50th Sydney - Hobart Race ... adding up to tens of thousands of offshore miles.
Dear Graham,Just a brief note to inform you of Nina Q1's travels. We are now back in Mooloolaba doing charter work, interesting and lucrative, but a little boring after Darwin and Indonesia. In 1992 we did the Gove to Darwin, great cruising, big tides and Nina's draft of 1.3m was a great advantage. The Darwin to Ambon race was an anti climax for us as we had no kite and were trapped in Darwin Harbour doldrums for a full afternoon. After Ambon we cruised to Irian Jaya and PNG, again great cruising, good sailing performance in negligible winds in Indo and 1400 miles to weather Babaul to Bundaberg, SE trades to 30kt. The wedge shape nylon keel retainer works perfectly and there is no keel slop at all. The boat has proven to be an outstanding yacht, easy to sail, perfectly balanced, fast, stable and comfortable, and all this to offshore survey standards. We are extremely happy with Nina and hope to sail in this years Ambon race and the Brisbane Osaka race 1994.Again Thanks for a great boat and hope you can get to sail with us.ThanksGerry Humphreys |
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"Nina Q1" has gone on to further adventures with her new owners and under her new name - "Blizzard".
"Blizzard" is now a 20 metre aluminium expedition schooner built to operate independently in the wild and remote regions of the world. See www.blizzardexpeditions.com for more details.
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