Most boating people dream of adventure, the fantasy of excitement and travel on the high seas. It is our nature, it is what makes us buy boats in the first place. We lust for the smell of the sea, the feel of a pitching ship as it parts the waves, the throbbing heartbeat of a rumbling diesel moving us steadily forward. Our fantasies summon us with romance, adventure, even a hint of danger.
A transatlantic crossing, exploring the vast wilderness of Chile’s coastline, retracing the route of the copra traders through the South Seas, gunkholing along the Great Barrier Reef, dodging bergy bits off Labrador or Alaska, sponge diving in the ancient waters of Greece—the voyages are limited only by our imaginations, fueled by the stories of our youth.
The dreams often involve some sort of rugged, no-nonsense little ship, the kind you imagine around the world carrying secret cargo, spies, and treasure from one remote port to an even more remote outpost. You know the kind of boat I’m talking about, a real rough-and-ready ship, the very image of which captures your heart and imagination.
If you ask other people to describe what the boat looks like, more often than not they will describe it as “…something that looks like a Romsdahl.” A Romsdahl. Yeah, a Romsdahl. That name pretty much sums it up…a Romsdahl.
In northwestern Norway is a county of about 150,000 inhabitants known as Romsdahl. If you look at a map of Norway, you’ll likely find that the nearest large city to this county is Ålesund. Well, Romsdahl is just north of Ålesund. There have always been scores of boat builders located in the Romsdahl region, whose capital city is Molde.
According to Norway’s Bergen Maritime Museum, in Bergen, Norway, the history of the Romsdahl-style boat goes all the way back to the 1870s, and a boat builder named Lars Jensen Hameraas. He built the first of these incredibly seaworthy fishing cutters (which were sailboats) to a design closely related to the Scottish trawlers of the time. The success of Hameraas’ boats was so universal that soon all of the other Romsdahl builders took inspiration from him, and the tradition of the Romsdahl-style was soon rooted in maritime history.
Around 1900–1905, the trawlers began trading their sails for husky and reliable engines, and the canoe stern trawlers continued to fish for herring off the Storegga Banks, and the larger codfish off Norway’s northern waters.
Up through the 1950s, these trawlers were all built in wood, in sizes from 35 feet to 70 feet. The Romsdahl tradition continued through the 1960s, although later boat construction was done mainly in steel.
Today there is still much active ship building in Norway, but after the 1960s, the diverse demands for supply ships, fishing trawlers, purse seiners, passenger transports, research vessels, and yachts changed the role of the traditional design—so many more shapes and sizes were launched, even in the Romsdahl region.
I have always had a fondness for the look and style of the traditional Romsdahl trawler, and I was excited to go aboard a steel vessel that had recently returned to Ft. Lauderdale from a long distance cruise up and down the U.S. East Coast. At 53 feet, Ulysses isn’t as big as many of the wood Romsdahls built in Norway, but she is every bit the true bluewater explorer. Built in 1963 with a steel hull and aluminum house, Ulysses has the look and feel of a small ship, and, at over 120,000 lbs. displacement, she in fact is. Ulysses draws eight feet, fully loaded.
Sitting in a slip, surrounded by huge super-yachts at Bradford International Marina, Ulysses seemed a bit out of place among the glitzy mega-yachts, all with their 6–10 person professional crews. During my visit, even some of those crewmembers came over for a visit to see “the real thing.” Yup, if you appreciate the look and feel of the traditional trawler, you’ll no doubt find a yacht like Ulysses incredibly appealing. Everything else is just fluff.
The present owner of Ulysses has owned her for the last 27,000 miles. When her owner is absent, the vessel is often under the care of Jerry and Wendy Taylor. Jerry and Wendy are a professional, no-nonsense delivery crew, accustomed to delivering 50’–80′ yachts around the Caribbean and the U.S. East Coast.
As successful professionals in a tough business, the Taylors are selective in the assignments they take on. Wendy, an athletic New Zealander, told me, “We’ll move any boat anywhere, but not for anyone.”
The Taylor’s association with Ulysses began when they first delivered her for her new owner from San Diego, through the Panama Canal to Florida. So much attachment developed with the owner and boat during those initial miles that the Taylors have stayed involved with Ulysses ever since, in one way or another, including managing a major refit of the trawler in 1995.
When not caring for Ulysses, or off on delivery duties, the couple lives aboard their Grand Banks 36 on the New River in Ft. Lauderdale. As I noticed when I dropped by for a quick look, the Taylors’ GB reflects their experience from many miles at sea—the boat is a study in simplicity. But that is another story…
I first spoke to Jerry Taylor to arrange the tour on Ulysses when I hadn’t yet been aboard. I asked Jerry how big she was. He told me she was 53 feet overall, which isn’t as large as many of the breed. But he quickly added that she is no lightweight trawler.
“Her last insurance claim was for $3,000…to repair a dock,” Jerry added with a laugh, giving me a bit of perspective. No lightweight indeed!
I arranged to visit the boat around the time Jerry and Wendy had brought Ulysses to Florida, after her owner’s season of cruising the boat in the Northeast. She was due for some maintenance work, which would disrupt her interior for several weeks, so I quickly packed a bag, loaded up the Outback, and headed south.
Onboard Ulysses
One thing about Florida in the fall is the annual collection of big yachts and mega-yachts that gather each year for one reason or another. The many marinas in southern Florida fairly bristle with tall masts, antennas, and upper boat decks that rise above the roofs of the surrounding marina buildings. Driving past, it takes little imagination to visualize the mammoth size of these yachts, even judging from just their antennas!
In Ft. Lauderdale, especially, these boats and their crews congregate to use the first-rate marine services located around the Ft. Lauderdale waterfront.
“You need a new paint job for that 160-footer? No problem, just pull it into that covered paint shed, and we’ll fix you right up…after we finish detailing this 185-foot motoryacht.” No kidding. If you ever get a chance to explore the New River area in Ft. Lauderdale around this time of year, you will be astounded by the number of super yachts along the shoreline, and the extensive facilities that cater to all of them.
Ulysses has spent some time in Ft. Lauderdale over the last couple of years, even though she really looks more at home idling past a glacier in Iceland or Alaska, or anchored in a lush tropical lagoon, instead of being nestled among a bunch of 175-foot monster motoryachts. But at least it wasn’t hard to locate the Romsdahl among the other yachts at Bradfords!
Approaching Ulysses, with her bow forward in the slip, the image was all-Romsdahl, a serious North Sea explorer. The dark blue hull and gray topsides were a sharp contrast to the white-on-white look of the surrounding yachts. Her forward mast with proper crow’s nest, a large 6-person Switlik liferaft canister mounted on the open foredeck next to her fo’c’s’le, the high bulwarks of her side decks, all add credence to her heritage.
Normal entry is from hinged, 24-inch wide gates, port and starboard, which bring you on deck amidships. The side decks are 27″ wide at these gates and taper down to 23″ as you move aft. An overhead boat deck gives 6’4″–6’6″ headroom around the side decks, which are well-protected by the 30-inch high bulwark. Three 7″ high by 20″ hinged flaps open out in the bulwark at deck level, so any water that does come aboard will drain quickly.
Walking aft along the narrowing side decks, there is plenty to hold onto on this steel vessel, and her exposed painted steelwork adds to the feeling of strength. Capped pipes extend through the side decks for fuel and water fills, as well as venting loops. Steel is adaptable that way, just put things where you want them, then weld it all up.
The double-ended stern keeps the aft deck on the small side, but there is a comfortable bench seat fitted along the transom, and there is still room for socializing—just not for twenty or thirty of your friends. Actually, with the high transom and 6’4″ headroom underneath the protection of the overhead boat deck, it is a rather snug secure-feeling place to be. There is a locking watertight hatch on the aft deck into the lazarette.
Double Dutch doors open out, for entry into the saloon.
Foredeck
Moving forward on the side decks again, you pass side doors, port and starboard, that lead into the cabin. The house structure on Ulysses is aluminum, and, as was the fashion in boat building during those days, the aluminum structure is bolted to the steel hull and deck, with some material separating the two dissimilar metals. You can see the bolts down near deck level.
(These days, instead on relying on bolts, many boatbuilding companies take advantage of an explosive bonding technology developed by DuPont to join all kinds of dissimilar metals, from aluminum to stainless to steel to titanium. Called Detacouple® or Detaclad®, the product is a strip of special material used to make the transition from one particular metal surface to another metal surface. In a steel-to-aluminum application, one side of the Detacouple® material is formulated to be welded directly to the steel surface, and the other side of the Detacouple® is manufactured to get welded to the aluminum surface. While initially expensive, the use of Detacouple® and Detaclad® is a real time-saver in metal boatbuilding, and completely eliminates the inherent corrosion problems of fastening unlike metals.)
Climbing two steps from the side deck brings you to a large open foredeck. Double lifelines provide 32 inches of protection all the way up to the bow. The design of this Romsdahl, indeed the trademark profile of all the Romsdahls, is an open foredeck, with the pilothouse set back from the bow. On Ulysses, the pilothouse is 25 feet back from the bow, putting it amidships, leaving the rest of the foredeck flush—which is good for dinghy storage, deck boxes, and opening hatches and a fo’c’s’le into the accommodations below.
The bow of Ulysses is 9 feet off the water, and the flair is quite pronounced, to shed waves and building head seas. A centerline anchor tube stores the primary anchor (a 150-lb. Navy-type) attached to 350 feet of 1/2-inch chain. Windlass chores are handled with a big hydraulic windlass, and a wash-down system keeps anchoring gear free of mud and goo. The rode goes down into a dedicated chain locker in the bow, which has a cement floor to keep the chain from damaging the steel’s painted finish, which would lead to rust in this hidden location. (With the tremendous reserve buoyancy of this hull shape in the bow area, Romsdahl-type trawlers are good candidates for all-chain or cable rodes stored on a spool mounted right on the foredeck, as is seen on many fishing boats. This arrangement keeps the anchor rode organized properly, while completely eliminating the need for a chain locker. (Actually, this isn’t a bad idea for any steel boat that can handle the weight on deck.)
There is a stout mast with solid stays about halfway back from the bow, with mast steps up to a crows’ nest. This mast also has a boom and running rigging for a steadying sail on Profurl roller furling gear. (The boat’s twin steadying sails are a stabilizing alternative to the Vosper active fin stabilizers, as well as providing a wind assist in downwind running conditions.)
The top section of this fore mast is hinged, so that it can be lowered to reduce bridge height clearance to 35 feet. It’s also helpful to get her into one of Bradford’s covered slips. (The SSB wire antenna, that spans the fore and aft masts, drops down when the fore mast is lowered, and care must be taken in such a setup to make sure the loose wire doesn’t snag the radar antenna when it is tensioned again as the top mast section is brought back up to vertical.)
The trawler’s 12-foot dinghy and electric lifting boom are found on the port side of the hull, an arrangement that has proven to work well, except when Ulysses is tied port side to a finger pier. But then every boat is a compromise, even a Romsdahl.
There is a narrow but secure structure of steps leading up to the pilothouse from the aft end of the foredeck on the port side. These steps form a small landing at the pilothouse door, but then continue up to the boat deck.
Boat Deck
On many pilothouse trawlers, the upper boat deck is a collection point for dinghy storage, kayak racks, bicycles, and other difficult-to-stow items that just don’t fit into a lazarette. More often than not, boat decks get cluttered to the point that the crew never thinks of going up there to sit around and check out the scenery—so it’s a good thing most boats have an aft deck!
On Ulysses, it is different, most probably because the dinghy is stored in its foredeck chocks, so the boat deck is clutter-free all the time. This equates to an area about 22′ long the full beam of the boat. Solid 33″–34″ handrails are around the deck.
The boat deck is actually epoxy-covered plywood over the original Norwegian pitch pine planks.
Another factor that adds to the boat deck’s friendly nature is Ulysses’ hollow stack. Long ago, for unknown reasons, the dry exhaust was changed into a wet exhaust exiting out the transom.
As a result, a large door (measuring 24″ by 44″) in the hollow stack swallows deck chairs and cushions, as well as life vests and other gear. Except for a couple of deck boxes for lines, and four huge orange round fenders tied to the weather-clothed stanchions, the rest of the boat deck is clear for socializing on a regular basis. So much time is spent up here (with a great view!) that a folding varnished-teak table was installed on the aft steadying sail mast.
Remove the table’s protective cover, leisurely pull out a couple of chaise lounges and cushions from the stack-turned-storage-shed, and pass up drinks and hors d’oeuvres for a summer evening’s happy hour. (Although I admit having a glacier-watching party from up here works in my mind just as easily.) It really is a workable outdoor lounge and entertainment area on a serious form-follows-function boat.
An interesting and clever detail: On top of the hollow stack is a metal box, constructed as a dorade vent, with all of the boat’s antennas mounted on the top surface. The individual cables all pass through into the steel box and then run into a single raised feeder tube that leads down into the boat’s interior. The installation is clean, numerous holes (and their potential for leaks) are minimized, and it looks great. Check out the photo.
Saloon And Galley
Walk through the double doors on the aft deck and you are standing in the saloon. My first impression was the relative cozy size (isn’t that a great way of saying kinda small?) of the interior. At a time when many designers are maximizing interior space by going to full-beam saloons, eliminating one or both side decks, it is unusual to see a 53-footer without a huge interior.
But wait a minute. The design philosophy of this Romsdahl centers around a real sea boat, not a liveaboard houseboat. The interior of Ulysses is for real-world conditions, at sea, so having side decks and an interior that puts functionality over maximum living space is more important.
It is actually a good thing to have a saloon where there is always something to hold onto in rough seas, and where you avoid an expansive open interior so you can’t build up momentum when you’re hurled across the cabin. Ulysses reflects this mentality. So, despite my initial impression, the saloon works just fine thank you.
There is an L-shaped settee on the starboard side of the 8’4″ wide saloon, with a large table firmly fixed in place. This table is one of the most comfortable tables with fiddles I’ve ever seen (fiddles are those raised moldings you find on the outer edge of tables, counters and chart tables to keep things from rolling off as the boat pitches and rolls in a seaway). The gentle slope of the fiddles doesn’t cut into your forearms and elbows. Wood workers, check it out!
Across from the settee is a bookshelf and entertainment center. Raise the hinged varnished top, flip a small switch, and a good-size Sony color television magically rises up from inside the cabinet—thanks to an electric automatic car window mechanism salvaged from a Toyota!
There are six 30″ by 40″ windows in the saloon, windows in the doors, and another 31″ by 44″ window in the aft bulkhead. Needless to say, there is plenty of light into the interior of this boat.
These windows represent another interesting detail: All non-opening windows use two panes of glass. Between the inner glass and the 3/8-inch exterior gasketed windows are mini-blinds, with control cords led through small openings in the wood frames. Besides the obvious benefits of good thermal insulation, these double windows keep the mini-blinds clean, as they just can’t collect dust. I sure wouldn’t mind having such windows on my boat! Those little blinds do their job well, but they always seem to get dirty quickly…
The saloon stretches forward about eight feet, and blends into the galley. Situated just inside the port side door, a small standing area separates the galley into one large counter that extends into the center of the boat, butting up to what used to be the dry exhaust. There are two large sinks mounted in the tiled counter surface, and racks overhead for glasses, cups, dishes, and other galley items.
On the forward bulkhead, the holding plate refrigerator and freezer are easy to use, and a three-burner LPG stove with oven is located just inside the doorway. You could actually use this stove in hot weather with this door open. Ulysses’ galley layout gives up the bottom end of the classic U-shape, but there is still adequate counter space and pantry storage for feeding the crew.
The hollow cabinetry of the dry exhaust houses a stereo, and remote controls for the Trace inverter and Northern Lights 20 kW genset.
Numerous teak and stainless steel handholds around the galley and saloon are further reminders of the nature of this trawler.
Going Forward
Reaching the forward accommodations is a two-level affair. Down two steps from the galley brings you to a landing that has a door to a head on the left, and a sliding pocket door to the right that leads down into the engine room.
The main head on Ulysses is 3’9″ long by 4’5″ wide, and, in addition to a standard marine toilet, contains a 34″ high vanity with sink and storage underneath. A pull-out faucet is the handheld shower head, and the floor has a large drain in one corner. The head is a good use of available space, with a large opening port to ventilate the compartment.
The Forward Cabins
Back at the landing, several steps further down takes you into the master stateroom, which is huge. (As you step down those last 32 inches, it’s possible to miss noticing the recessed watertight door, complete with massive dogs, that closes off this section of the boat in an emergency.)
Measuring 8’9″ long by almost the full beam of the boat (the cabin is almost 15 feet wide at the widest point), there is plenty of room for real beds, clothing storage, and shelves for books.
The master stateroom is under the foredeck, and headroom is determined by the contour of the flush deck, measuring between 6’3″ and 6’10”. There is a double berth on the starboard side of the cabin, with drawers and shelves under, around, and above. A large cedar-lined hanging locker is just off the foot of the bed.
Opposite the double berth is a single bunk, along with a seat, and there are more drawers and lockers. Electric fans and lights are situated throughout the stateroom. Overall, a tasty and functional sea cabin. In addition to several ports, there’s a large opening deck hatch that opens on the foredeck. This hatch is built with a raised coaming, fit between two large deck boxes, just forward of the pilothouse.
Along the aft bulkhead of the cabin is a large framed painting, which, cleverly, is actually a hinged panel that swings down to become a full-size desk, complete with mail slots and shelves for stationary and supplies. Hmmm. Wonder if I could sneak aboard and continue writing PMM while Ulysses is out cruising. There’s room for a computer, and I could easily store my pads, pens and other stuff…
Continuing forward, past yet another heavy, gasketed watertight door, you are now in the forward guest cabin. With four comfortable single bunks along the sides of the hull, the cabin is big, well-lit, with two large hanging lockers to stow guests’ belongings.
A fixed vertical ladder leads to the foredeck through an ondeck fo’c’s’le, which opens aft and does a wonderful job of ventilating the interior of the boat. It also allows guests or crew to get on deck without having to traverse the master stateroom, which might be especially helpful when the owners are sleeping in, and it is a guest’s turn to catch conch for breakfast.
An overhead track carries a curtain to separate the cabin in half—furnishing the illusion of privacy, always a concern aboard any vessel.
The guest cabin has its own head with combined shower, located in the forepeak, against the collision bulkhead/chain locker. A large mirror opens out to reveal not a medicine cabinet, but a large hatch opening into the chain locker. There is a vanity with sink on one side of the marine toilet.
Engine Room
Sliding open the pocket door into the engine room, I knew I was going to be treated to a real Holy Place, the heart of a real bluewater passagemaker. Just inside the pocket door is a square metal floor, a position from where you can turn on various systems or inspect gauges without actually having to step down into the engine room proper.
Down at your feet, the ship’s electrical system rests securely on a strong shelf built into the starboard side of the hull, and it contains five gel 8D house batteries, dual Newmar 40 amp battery chargers, and a Trace 2.5 kW Power Inverter. Neatly bundled cables and wires run overhead out of sight, and the look is all business.
A red metal ladder brings you down to the engine room floor, which is entirely bright white painted sheet metal, and the powder-coated flooring easily reflects light from numerous 24VDC lights and 110VAC fluorescent fixtures. Headroom throughout the engine room is 4’10″–5′.
Despite the age of Ulysses, it still didn’t surprise me that I could eat off of just about everything in this engine room. Electrical cables are all neatly bundled in groups, spare parts are stored together in a separate space towards the rear of the engine room, tools are organized in a workbench with tool boxes and a vise—and all of the machinery is clean and obviously well-maintained.
There are a couple of small stools to carry around to wherever you need to spend any time, so standing hunched over is not required to perform most activities.
Sitting right in the middle of the engine room is a shiny green Volvo six cylinder TMD-102A, rated at 272 horsepower. It is not the original engine, but in fact replaced a Volvo MD96B diesel in 1995 when it became difficult to obtain parts for the older engine.
The Volvo is mated to Twin Disc MG5091 marine gears, with a 3.82:1 reduction gear, turning a 44″ by 36″ three blade propeller.
I thought the thick 94mm propeller shaft (about 4 inches diameter) unusual, but it too is a replacement. Seems Ulysses originally had a Heimdahl controllable pitch propeller system. After many years of operation, and then damage after a serious grounding in Mexico years ago by a previous owner, the unit just wore out. So when Ulysses was repowered, she got a completely new drivetrain.
Ulysses cruises at 9.5 knots, using about 180 horsepower from her Volvo at 1,600 rpm. This performance results in an average of 7 GPH, with 4 hours of generator time figured into that daily average. Not bad for a 62-ton vessel!
Total fuel tankage is 3,000 gallons in four tanks—two 750-gallon wing tanks outboard on the sides of the hull, a 1,000-gallon tank forward (located for ballast), and a 500-gallon belly tank under the engine that is used as a day tank (all fuel is transferred to this tank before going into the engine’s primary fuel circuit). At 9.5 knots and 7 GPH, 3,000 gallons will take Ulysses across any ocean.
The Volvo turns a 130-amp Ieece-Neville alternator, and a hydraulic pump on the front of the engine powers the windlass and bow thruster.
There are two gensets aboard Ulysses. One is an English Phasor unit rated at 5.5 kW, and uses a Kubota diesel. The larger genset is a Northern Lights 20 kW unit. Both gensets are fueled from a dedicated gravity day tank.
A pump off the front of the Northern Lights generator supplies power to a small hydraulic motor mounted low, next to the propeller shaft. Attach a short length of double chain to link the sprockets on this hydraulic pump to matching sprockets on the thick propeller shaft, and you’ve just enabled Ulysses’ get home system. As we’ve reported before, this is a common approach for a get home system on single engine vessels.
I was completely amazed to discover that Ulysses’ fin stabilizers are original, and still work great after 35 years! Made by Vosper Thornycroft, the English sister company to the U.S. Naiad stabilizer firm, these active fins just keep working, only requiring an upgrade to their electronic components. I think this performance is quite a testimonial—to the use of active fins, in general, and to the companies that make such quality equipment.
Also original is a freezer in the engine room. While I wouldn’t think a hot engine room would be the best location for storing frozen foods, this freezer has been a real winner. During the 1995 refit, it was discussed whether to do anything major to the freezer, but since it has continued to require only a short running time each day of the holding plate system to keep things fully frozen, it was decided to just upgrade the system with modern Technicold apparatus. Same with the air conditioning system, also a Technicold unit.
Ordinary acoustic tile line the overhead. Again, given the 1963 vintage of Ulysses, this entire engine room layout is about as simple and functional as you can get. There are sight gauges on all of the fuel tanks. The genset gravity day tank has an easily-accessed sump with plumbing to drain accumulated water and particulate matter. There are working flashlights strategically located throughout the engineroom…just in case.
Everything, it seems, has been done to keep the vessel and crew safe, and out of self-inflicted harm’s way. All marine systems break at one time or another, it’s only a matter of time, so access for regular maintenance is an important concern.
With the comfort of a cushioned stool under my butt, I imagine that engine room chores would be easy and routine—hey, how about piping in a little music!?! How about some Rolling Stones while I transfer some fuel. (Or would it be better listening to Manhattan Transfer?)
Pilothouse
Up some steps from the galley/saloon level, you come up to Ulysses’ pilothouse. This is the real command center for the boat, and where all the adventure takes place. Sure, the engine room is fun to tinker in, the boat deck is great for cocktails, but it is the pilothouse that makes or breaks a passagemaker of this type.
With seven windows facing forward, five of which open, the forward visibility from the pilothouse is excellent. Access outside is through the door on the port side of the pilothouse, which takes you out to that narrow ladder we saw from the foredeck.
A 23-inch wheel is centerline on the pilothouse console, flanked by instruments and controls. There is a long settee behind the console, with a sit-down chart table that folds up to make the settee into a watch berth.
The pilothouse equipment includes Furuno 1940 radar, GPS, Loran, and plotter; Robertson AP200DL autopilot, rudder angle, depth and speed instruments; controls for the Vosper stabilizers; a Raytheon loudhailer; a Hewitt Industries pyrometer; ICOM’s M120 VHF and SSB radios; a Furuno weatherfax; American bow thruster controls; the original and still reliable Wood Freeman autopilot (as West Coast fishermen are fond of saying, “You can always fix a Wood Freeman!”); controls for Technicold air conditioning; an ACR 406 EPIRB; and a Ritchie 6″ compass.
Not an excessive amount of electronics, considering the capability of this boat, and much of the electronics are pretty basic, without all the latest bells and whistles.
The photos show the details of the pilothouse. Suffice it to say, it is the real thing, and has worked well for years.
Ulysses Today
With every boat, as with every story, there is a beginning and an end. For Ulysses, her story began in 1963, and the intervening years have seen her with a couple of different names and owners. She has traveled many sea miles since leaving Norway, and there is little doubt she has many more miles to go before she’s done passagemaking.
A coastal cruiser she isn’t, although her last few years have been happily spent doing just that. But that isn’t her nature, her true destiny.
As Jerry Taylor put it, “Ulysses isn’t meant for confined, shallow waterways. Ulysses is meant for deep water.”
There are a lot of wannabes out there, and there are even more people who dream of becoming genuine bluewater passagemakers. Well, folks, you need look no further than Ulysses to see what it takes, and what it looks like.
So what does the future hold? Who knows… Perhaps in a couple of years she may head back up the U.S. West Coast to cruise the glaciers of Alaska, which would be fitting. But then so would spending another season in the tropical Caribbean waters, or down in South America. Or back up to Maine.
But it really doesn’t matter. Wherever her crew wants to take her, Ulysses can go with comfort, style, and confidence. Even among the mega-yachts of Ft. Lauderdale, she is the real deal. Put her in the distant corners of the world, she’s still the real thing. A Romsdahl.
Yeah, a Romsdahl.
“Me? Yeah, I know the name, even been aboard one awhile back. Name of Ulysses, out of Boston, and let me tell ya’—old Lars would’ve been proud!”
