Cloudbreak, here
and above, has
many spaces
suitable for family
and guests to sleepThe catamaran
Orion has an 11.6m
beam so has a
wide cockpit that
is the most popular
spot on boardThere’s plenty
to keep the
Kulikovskys’ four
children occupied
on Orion, including
reading a book
Stearns agrees that outdoor space is
paramount. Other than her girls’ classroom time
in the mornings, “we didn’t really spend a lot of
time indoors”, she says. One of the best things
they did was simply to put hammocks up on deck.
“It was like a swing set.” She and husband Glenn
also considered installing uneven bars on deck
for their budding gymnasts but it was an idea that
fell by the wayside during the pre-trip refit’s
many to-dos. One important task that did get
done was upgrading the spa pool from a
two-person to an eight-person, and at anchor, thegirls got to practise their gymnastics, diving and
flipping of the passerelle.
For those not blessed with massive deck
space, Hoekstra recommends minimal built-in
furniture so that the set-up is flexible. “If you can’t
go in the water, the boat can become more
of a playing object, like for a tricycle or football,”
he says.Toys now!
There’s no such thing as too many water toys on
a family yacht, but there is such a thing as too138