Lovisa is a Najad 340, Number 12, built in 1990 by Najad Varvet AB in Sweden. We bought her in August 2023 with the ambition to sail her to the Caribbean. Najad boats are well known for their robustness so she is a perfect fit for this trip.
Lovisa has actually a long story of ocean sailing since she sailed around the globe once with her former owners. We trust she knows the route.
General information
Name: LOVISA
Call sign: SG6436
Manufacturer: Najadvarvet (Sweden)
Designer: Thorwald Karlsson
Length LOA: 10,2m / 33,46ft
Length LWL: 8,65 / 28,38ft
Depth: 1,60m / 5,35ft
Width: 3,40m / 11,15ft
Displacement: 7,000 kg
Material: GRP sandwitch
Water tank: 200L
Diesel tank: 130L
Engine: Volvo Penta D2-40B (installed in 2006)
Gearbox: Volvo Penta MS15L-B (ratio 2.63:1) (installed in 2019)
Main Anchor: Bruce 20kg + 60m marked chain + windlass.
Secondary Anchor: Bruce 15kg + 4m chain + anchor line.
Sails
1 Main Sail with 2 reefs
2 Genoa for the Furlex
1 Jib for the cutter stay
1 Stormsail for the cutter stay
1 Gennaker with gennaker sock
2 Whisker poles
Bow Thruster
Lovisa is equipped with a Volvo Penta bow thruster (side thruster) at the front to help maneuvering the boat in harbors at low speed.
Windvane
She is equipped with a Monitor Windvane at the back that we tested during the summer 2024. As we were approaching the end of the season, we couldn’t test it on long stretch, however, on short distances and different points of sail, we saw good response of the windvane that was able to keep a stable course.
Navigation
We fitted Lovisa with a Garmin 723xs plotter mounted on the pedestal in front of the helmsman. The plotter is connected to a Garmin GMR Fantom 18 radar mounted on the top rail, between the solar panels. A Nexus wireless wind instrument is installed on the top of the mast to provide information about wind direction and wind strength. She is equipped with a sonar to measure depth below the boat and forward sonar for depth in front of the boat.
She is fitted with a Raymarine ST5000 autopilot with a linear drive to support us when cruising long distances.
The mast is fitted with a radar reflector that improves the visibility of Lovisa on other boats’ radars.
Communication
We have onboard a V60 B&G VHF radio for short range boat to boat communications. The VHF radio is connected to a CTRX AIS receiver/sender that allows to receive the position of other boats equipped with and AIS in the surrounding and also send out our position. For long range communications, we have a ICOM M802 HF radio. The HF radio use the isolated backstay as antenna via an antenna tuner connected at the back of the boat.
In addition to these, we have a hand-held ICOM VHF radio with AIS receiver incorporated, an Iridium satellite telephone and Iridium Go.
Energy
Lovisa is fitted with 3 batteries AGM 180Ah each to supply the different systems, an additional AGM battery 100Ah located at the front to support the bow thruster and one start battery AGM 90Ah. The battery pack is charged by two solar panels 100W each located on the top rail connected to the batteries via an MPPT regulator.
To complement the solar panels, we will bring with us a towed hydro generator that we will connect to the battery pack.
A 12V to 230V pure sine wave inverter is also onboard to allow us to use 230V-equipment.
Kitchen
The kitchen is equipped with a gas stove with 2 burners and an oven. The gas bottles are stored in the ventilated anchor box at the front of the boat. We have a gas alarm for early detection of gas leakage inside the boat (if any).
We have a double sink with 3 water taps: one mixer tap for cold fresh water coming from the water tank or hot fresh water from the water heater, one tap for fresh water coming from the water tank via a carbon filter and a last tap for sea water. The fresh water system uses a 12V pump and sea water system a foot pump.
The kitchen is also equipped with a small fridge that relies on a small compressor unit.