Some of our friends tell us: your videos and pictures are great. How about some facts and figures? So, here you go, the number crunchers: as of February 2020 we had Barbarella for 22 month. During this time we:

– Sailed 8500nm

– At the average speed of 5.7kts

– Max irrelevant speed was 19.9kts (irrelevant because we surfed down waves and any boat would go fast, while surfing down waves)

– Maximum “sustained” speed was between 11 and 12 knots (see video below). That takes around 26 kts of wind, with jib and main sail up and no reef

– Our real tacking angles (i.e. including drift etc.) are anything between 110 degrees (if conditions are perfect), 125 degrees (typical) and 140 degrees with strong winds and waves

– In total we had 1860 Watts of solar panels installed. This allowed us to get rid of our gas oven and gas cooker. We now have a fully electric galley. Even having a completely electric galley, a water maker, chart plotters, a freezer, fridges, an auto pilot and all our electronic gadgets we do not miss or need a generator at all. During the last 22-month journey we only had to run one of our Volvo diesel engines once for 2 hours (during our Atlantic crossing with lots of 24/7 electric demand and overcast sky for almost 3 days) just to recharge our batteries

– Each of our Volvo Penta D2-40 diesel engines has close to 400 hours on clock. In total, we burned 1840 liters of diesel which is 2.3 liters per hour, per engine. When cruising under engine, we typically run one engine only. At 1700 RPM we burn around 2 liters per hour and go 4.9 knots if there is no wind and no waves