Beginnings August 11
Heretic is a Westphal 38 built in Florida in 1968. Her design is modeled on the Sparkman and Stephens Finisterre. Her length overall is 38.5 feet, beam 11.5 feet, and she is a cutter rigged sloop. She is a full-keel centerboarder; with the centerboard down she draws 9 feet, with it up, 4.5 feet. Seth Leonard purchased her in April 2006 for a westward circumnavigation of the globe. The proposed route will take Heretic down the East Coast of the US, through the northern Caribbean, the Panama Canal, across the Pacific, and across the north of Australia to the southern Indian Ocean. Heretic will sail around the bottom of South Africa and then back across the Atlantic to the southern Caribbean, Bermuda, and back to Maine.
Seth began outfitting her for the voyage in City Island, New York, where he purchased her, and has continued the outfit both in Blue Hill, Maine, and in the Morris Yachts boatyard at Bass Harbor, Maine. Friends Alec Schoettle, John Rupp, Nick Parson, Ellen Massey, and Nate Moore have and are helping with the outfitting. The outfitting includes re-wiring and re-plumbing the entire boat, running new propane hoses for the stove, installing new and new-to-us electronics including a radar and single sideband radio and modem for e-mail at sea. The Perkins 4-107 diesel engine will also receive some attention, including a new cutlass bearing. The biggest project is the installation of an entirely new rig: mast, boom, and running rigging. Other smaller projects also abound, from through-bolting the center table in the cabin, to re-bedding all the fasteners in the sheer clamp, to building a cradle for the liferaft. Work continues while the crew that will begin the trip (Ellen Massey, Nate Moore, John Rupp, and of course, Seth) all live at Seth’s house in Blue Hill, hoping to depart before the weather gets too cold!
