9,000 miles and some four oceans later, gracing the docks at Nanny Cay Resort & Marina this week is Ohana, a new Arcona 435 Mk II, owned and skippered by Ken Wisdom (Wilton, CT). A carbon machine through and through with beautiful lines, she was built in Sweden at the Arcona factory in Uddevalla, Sweden. She was ready to set sail last summer; Wisdom picked her up directly from the factory and then began the voyage of a lifetime. Wisdom and his crew raced her in the Baltics, sailed the ARC, raced the RORC Caribbean 600, sailed to St Maarten and raced the Heineken on a friend’s boat, and then to the BVI.
“We’ve sailed in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, English Channel, Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar and crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and YES, Ohana was a BIG bucket list item,” Wisdom laughed good-humouredly. “Our last boat was German built and we didn’t have a lot of time so we put it on the back of a ship and shipped her back. We enjoyed that boat for the last five years but with Ohana we said, “You know what? Let’s sail it back.”
Ohana is named such because for the Wisdoms, it’s all about family and friends. Friends from all around the world have joined Ohana from Wisdom’s home yacht club Cedar Point, and the New York Yacht Club, to their friends in Sweden and Europe.
“As we say, our crew are family that are friends and friends that are family,” Wisdom smiled. “We’ve had different friends come and go on the boat, we’ve had wonderful times and wonderful camaraderie, which has probably been the most important thing on this journey.”
But it’s not been without its adventures. Ohana incurred had a run in with a whale off Portugal where an Orca decided to make Ohana’s rudder its lunch, biting off half the rudder, Wisdom said.
“We knew about the Orca phenomena in that area and we were trying to stay offshore but we needed to provision off Lisbon, so we came in and were about seven miles offshore at sunset and all of a sudden something hit the boat and spun it around and we saw these very large animals in the water! We throttled up and were able to get away with what was left of the rudder.”
And for a spot of Orca trivia, the Wisdoms’ discovered something quite interesting when they got into port – there is a new profession in Portugal – Orca technicians – guys who repair rudders day in and out; it’s a big issue, noted Wisdom, and at this point a well-documented phenomenon.
Ohana is the ultimate racer cruiser – Wisdom loves to race, his wife loves to cruise and they like to do both together so above the deck she is all race, performance winches, B&G systems, the sail inventory includes a dozen sails from North, down below is all Swedish-built with three cabins, two heads and all the creature comforts.
“We did a lot of research to find the right boat and because my wife is from Sweden, we’ve spent a lot of time there and discovered Arcona a dozen years ago,” Wisdom said. “We met the owner of the company; he took us sailing and the boats were just amazing, they were winning races, people loved the balance of the boat and how the craftsmanship stood out.”
Arcona is not a mass production shop so in the Baltics and Europe it’s a well-known brand; they won European Boat of the Year in 2019. The Wisdoms were able to test sail and race a couple of models, and the US dollar was in good shape, so they placed an order, and took six trips to the factory while she was under construction.
“We saw every little aspect of the build; we’re really excited about her and thoroughly happy with our choice,” Wisdom smiled.
The family had previously chartered in the BVI and raced Spring Regatta twice some ten years ago on a friend’s Hylas 54 Sea Pearl. They’re having a great time putting Ohana through her paces in the fabulous trades this week.
“We’ve met some wonderful people here and it’s been breeze-on so we’re really getting to test the boat with Mother Nature at her finest,” Wisdom said. “It’s been good fun, the weather is great, we have no complaints, BVI Spring Regatta puts on a hell of an event!”
