S/V Che Figata is a Hylas 56, designed by German Frers and built by renown shipbuilder Queen Long Marine in Taiwan. “Che Figata” (pronounced Kay Figata) is Italian slang for “totally awesome.” Jill wanted the boat to have a happy name and we both wanted a name that really captured how we feel when sailing so Che Figata was the clear choice.
We first saw a Hylas 56 when we attended the Annapolis boat show in the Fall of 2013. We had our Beneteau 46 at the time but we were already beginning to dream dreams that were larger than what we were comfortable doing in that boat. To be clear, Beneteaus are great boats and many people sail the world in them but, as Zack likes to say, “the margin for error” is bigger in a blue water cruiser like a Hylas and getting Jill comfortable with the idea of crossing oceans in a sailboat was a condition precedent to what we came to call the “5 year plan.” (An important note here: The 5 year plan was referred to as the 5 year plan every year. Sort of like that repeating 59th birthday. Finally, we decided that if it was truly a 5 year plan the following year it needed to be a 4 year plan and so on and so forth. So one year our 5 year plan turned into a 3 year plan — not quite compensating for the number of years that the 5 year plan remained a 5 year plan but at least we started and, more importantly committed to, the countdown.)
We loved the Hylas 56 — its lines, solid build, sail plan, hull shape, head room, beautiful woodwork, galley kitchen (perfect for bracing yourself during a passage) and the hand holds everywhere. Plus it was a boat we knew we could double handle which is important if you don’t want (or can’t afford!) a crew. We didn’t love the price — as a semi-custom boat it costs more than a typical production boat — but like everything else it is a question of priorities. We tend to spend money on experiences over things (and we placed the boat in the experience category) so we didn’t rule it out but we also weren’t quite ready to make the leap to a boat like a Hylas. That meant true commitment to the 5 year plan.
But two years later, October 2015, we went back to the Annapolis boat show and Hylas was #1 on our list. We had now visited twice and the sales rep could “smell a live one” so after walking through the boat show boat he invited us to tour another Hylas 56 that was not in the show. We were able to see how semi-custom these boats could be. Following the show we did a lot of research which only served to reinforce that Hylas was the right boat for our future plans. By February 2016 we had plane tickets to Florida to see a few more Hylas sailboats and take one out on a sail. We were hooked. Aside from the Hylas 56 being a great boat, Queen Long was (and is) a family owned ship builder with the highest standards of quality, workmanship and service. Within a month we had a contract to build a Hylas of our own with a delivery date of 4Q2017.
When building a semi custom yacht you visit as many other earlier hulls as possible to get ideas for your own build based on what other owners have done. It was through the process that we met the owners of S/V Dharma, Hylas 56 hull #18, delivered in 2014. The owners of Dharma made many of the design choices we were planning to make as well as many that we wanted to make but had crossed off our list due to the cost. She became our gold standard. When her owners decided to sell her after less than three years, it felt like destiny and in late April 2017 she was ours. We renamed her S/V Che Figata with all the appropriate pomp and circumstance — and observance of protocol — that such an act warrants. For the record, that did not include Jill dancing on the bow naked as Zack indicated was custom because, after all, Jill gave birth to 3 children and, therefore, was clearly not a virgin. Jill was highly confident that dancing naked on the bow would be totally ineffective if the dancer was not a virgin. (At least that was her excuse.)
On August 1, 2020, our 38th wedding anniversary, we moved aboard Che Figata full time. We don’t own a house or cars. We gave away many of our possessions and put everything else in long term storage. Che Figata is our home and our address is wherever the wind may take us. We think that’s totally awesome.