About
The primary goal behind the Comillas49 blog is to share the journeys aboard O’Comillas with family, friends and fellow sailors around the world. We have learned so much from others that, in the spirit of comradeship, we felt it would be a good idea to document our voyages so that what we learn can be of use to others. Furthermore, as we’ve said in the blog before, if it helps a single person contemplating a dream to move forward and act on it, then that alone would be reward enough.
The sailboat’s name is O’Comillas. To know why we named the ship O’Comillas you are going to have to read the blog since the name has a deeper meaning for my father and me and it is related to the motivation behind the first journey: a trip across the Atlantic ocean.
O’Comillas is a brand-new, fully-equipped 2003 Bavaria 49. Everything you ever wanted to know about the sailboat can be learned in the Specifications, Electronics and Autonomy pages. One interesting piece of trivia behind the sailboat is that despite its 49 designation, mostly done by Bavaria to differentiate from the prior model 50, the Bavaria 49 overall length is actually 50.6 feet. (15.43 meters, just 2 centimeters short of the 50 model)
After testing both the Bavaria 49 and Bavaria 50, we can tell you we have a fast cruising sailboat. In very simple terms, a sailboat’s speed is directly proportional to its waterline length and the sails’ surface area. Other factors that affect speed are the overall weight of the ship and weight distribution of the hull. O’Comillas is lighter, longer at the waterline and with more sail surface area than the Bavaria 50. It handles beautifully and is very balanced to steer. We are obviously going to talk a lot more about the sailboat as we get under way in the Ocean, but so far it looks very promising.
O’Comillas has a Spanish flag and it is owned by the Espiñeira family through an investment/chartering company in northwestern Spain.