SY Seraph

A long history of work and adventure

A working vessel

At 117-years-old, Seraph is the only known vessel of this era still working in marine research and survey operations. She is also a real eco-ship, with her main propulsion being her six sails. She is acts as a green-tech testing platform and the onboard systems are solar powered with DC smart invertors.

The history

Seraph has had an illustrious and varied history on the high seas. She spent her first 70 years as a then ketch rigged Baltic fishing vessel with just her sails as propulsion. With her fast and seaworthy hull, she acted as a "buy boat', sailing amongst the fishing fleet at sea and racing the fresh catch back to port to be sold. This was before the invention of refrigeration, so speed and seaworthy-ness were in high demand. At that time, she had a wet hull, where wooden hull plugs were used to let sea water into the whole mid-hull section, which then acted as a giant fish tank.

Specifications and equipment

Updated over the years, Seraph now offers something quite unique. An incredibly stable platform and heavy full displacement hull with an overall length of 75 feet and beam of 5.1 meters. The hull is of 2-inch carvel planking on tightly spaced oversized frames. She was built for big seas and constant storms of the Baltic sea.

She has 8 berths with 2 x electric heads and showers, a generator, 3 phase electric windlass (with a 150m of chain), a sail wardrobe of approx. 15 sails (including main, mizzen stay sails, fore sails, jib, Golly wobbler, and a range of top sails including jack yard top sail, and a mizzen top sail). She also comes with 2 x tenders, 50 pax life raft, 50 life jackets, plus all necessary safety gear.