In December 2004 we impulsively purchased an incredible sailing yacht named Raven, a Sundeer 64 designed by Steve Dashew, and that decision changed our lives. Five years later, with a reluctant nod towards advancing time, we moved on to another Dashew creation, the impressive FPB 64 motor yacht, newly christened AVATAR. Both boats are exceptionally capable blue-water cruisers. One is powered by sail, the other by diesel fuel, but both hold true to the same design concept of a long-distance passagemaker built to uncompromising standards of quality and luxury seamlessly merged with high performance.
This website was originally created to record a written and photographic journal of our experiences voyaging the seas aboard Raven. However in 2010 it was expanded (but not replaced) to include our continuing adventures aboard AVATAR without forgetting those memorable years aboard Raven. The memories we continue to accumulate are priceless to us, and this website serves to preserve them for present and future enjoyment as well as share with friends and family. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures almost as much as we continue to enjoy living them!
About RAVEN:
Raven is a Sundeer 64 cutter built in 1995, the last to launch of a production series of ten 64s built by TPI, Newport, Rhode Island. She has been meticulously maintained and enhanced over her lifetime by both past and current owners. As a matter of fact, in September 2005 Sailing Magazine’s Best Boats Issue named the Sundeer 64 “Best Boat” in which to circumnavigate – an accolade even more meaningful as it was written more than 10 years after the last Sundeer (our Raven) was launched. High praise, indeed!
Raven was originally christened Panache upon first launch, but her second owners, Jan and Signe Twardowski of Gig Harbor, Washington, renamed her when they purchased her in 1998. You can read about Raven’s early years of cruising on the Twardowski’s ravencruise.com website which they maintained during the years they enjoyed Raven before selling her to us in late 2004.
In the culture of the Pacific Northwest Indian tribes, the Raven is the central figure in tribal stories. Among many other adventures, Raven is credited with stealing the sun. As the story goes, an old man kept the sun locked away in a cedar box, so that the world was dark. One day Raven stole the sun from the old man, but as he was flying away, he dropped it. That is how the sun took its place in our sky, and also why the logo the Twardowskis used for Raven shows a red ball (the sun) in Raven’s beak.
About AVATAR:
Avatar – a concrete manifestation of any abstraction, such as an idea or concept; embodiment.
1. a new personification of a familiar idea
AVATAR is the first of a production run of FPB 64s, conceived by Steve Dashew after a lifetime of designing illustrious sailing yachts. His FPB 83 Wind Horse was the prototype and we enjoyed following Steve and Linda’s adventures as they put Wind Horse through her paces from the tropics to the Arctic, refining the details of the design concept until it led to the development of a smaller but equally capable sister ship, the FPB 64.
To date eleven FPB 64s have been commissioned in the boatyard of acclaimed yacht builders Circa Marine in Whangarei, New Zealand. Added to the family is the newly launched (fall 2014) FPB 97 Iceberg, and three FPB 78s are under construction. But our AVATAR was the first to make a splash – both literally and figuratively speaking – when she launched in March 2010.
Carol & Mike Parker