41' Sparkman & Stephens Cold-Molded Custom Cutter (1986) - CELESTE

HISTORY & GENERAL COMMENTS

CELESTE was custom-designed by Francis Kinney (naval architect for Sparkman & Stephens, known for designing the 12M and authoring the 8th edition of Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design). She was built by the renowned classic yacht builder Bent Jespersen in Sidney, BC, Canada. CELESTE is a two-owner boat that has traveled from the Arctic to the South Pacific. She is beautiful yet rugged, elegant and yet set up for world-girdling adventure.

Soon after her launch, CELESTE was awarded “Best Sail” in the 1986 Vancouver Wooden Boat Festival, a testament to the craftsmanship extending well beyond the visible part of the boat. She has a storied and rich history, having her adventures recounted in every major sailing publication and has graced the covers of Pacific Yachting, Ocean Navigator, and The Pacific Crossing Guide (RCC Pilotage Foundation).

She is relatively fast for a cruising yacht, frequently making 7 knots through the water, and averaging 160-170 miles a day offshore. She is comfortable for cruises in both the tropics and the high latitudes, with all the amenities one would want. She comes completely outfitted for extended voyaging, with a full complement of sails, wind vane and autopilot, all the electronics, Spectra water-maker, Force 10 stove/oven, safety gear, and countless spares and tools. But she is also a great boat to jump aboard for a weekend cruise or day-sail.

CELESTE has the look of a traditional classic, but her inch-and-a-quarter-thick hull of cold-molded Western red cedar and mahogany, finished with an ice-proofing layer of GRP and Kevlar, provide strength and stiffness enough to withstand gales and even sea-ice. Her fin keel and skeg-hung rudder make for the perfect combination of maneuverability, speed, and strength.

If you are looking for a boat that is a piece of history, this is it.

CONSTRUCTION

CELESTE is a custom-designed and built cutter-rigged sloop, built 1986. She was commissioned by a wealthy real estate developer in Victoria, British Columbia; he wanted a beautiful classic-looking yacht with modern design features and modern performance. He had Francis Kinney, naval architect and yacht designer in New York City, design her. Francis Kinney was one of the foremost designers at Sparkman & Stephens for over 30 years; he designed the 12M yachts for the America’s Cup. He authored the 7th and 8th editions of Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design. CELESTE was built by Jespersen Boat Builders in Sidney, BC, Canada, a renowned yard for cold-molded Spirit of Tradition yachts.

CELESTE’s hull is 1 1/4 inches thick, built of 3 layers of Western red cedar and a final layer of Honduran mahogany saturated in epoxy resin, all the wood laid up at opposing angles. She has a fin keel with 6,750 pounds of lead for ballast. This gives her a ballast to weight ratio of 38.5%, which makes her very safe in heavy weather. She’s 17,500 pounds gross weight, relatively light for a cruising yacht, which makes her fast.

Her cabin and coamings are varnished Honduran mahogany laminates. Her deck is marine plywood with teak over top and her coach roof is marine ply with fiberglass and paint. The interior cabinetry is finished, which you don’t find on production boats or yachts of lesser quality.

MAJOR REFITS

2013/2014: Platypus Marine boatyard in Port Angeles, WA. The yard stripped and thoroughly dried her hull as a preventive measure against osmosis in the future. CELESTE did not have any osmosis but the owner wanted to prevent that happening the course of ownership and beyond. Once that was done, the hull was sheathed all the way up to the toerail in fiberglass and then a foot-wide layer of Kevlar was added to the waterline for ice resistance (for the owner’s voyage to the Arctic) but it is also nice insurance against any floating debris. Then of course she got a new barrier coat and paint on the whole hull.

In this refit, she was repowered with a brand-new Yanmar 3YM30 engine. She also received new Rolls Battery Engineering AGM batteries (460 amp hours), new wiring, new plumbing, all new electronics, Refleks diesel heater, a couple of replacement through-hulls, rebedded deck fittings, new “next-generation” anchors, new running rigging, new low-draw refrigerator, new watermaker, new LED interior and exterior lighting, and safety equipment including a Jordan Series Drogue. Her rudder (dropped, inspected, and rehung during the 2014 refit) is hung on a skeg independent of the fin keel, which makes the best combination – fin keel for speed and windward pointing ability, but the rudder and propeller protected by a skeg.

2017: Platypus Marine stripped and redid all her varnish, installed a new V-berth hatch, redid her lifelines and stanchions, and installed a bigger holding tank. Just as importantly, Port Townsend Rigging fabricated and installed all new standing rigging. And a new mainsail was fitted.

2019: Installed a new Spectra Ventura watermaker, replacing the smaller one from 2014 for higher volume output.

2021: CELESTE received new paint on her cabin top, bulwarks, and toerail. All her deck fittings and hatches were again rebedded (after a few years of passage-making and cruising in the South Pacific), and all her ports removed and rebedded.

2023/2024: She received a new hot water heater, new pressure water pump, a new turbine-type fuel filter (making filter changes easier) for her engine, new insulation for the engine compartment, a new hatch for her aft cabin, a new starting battery, a new Jabsco head, a new 120% genoa, and a new mainsail cover.

These refits are in addition to the regular maintenance: haul-outs for bottom paint and servicing seacocks, zincs for her prop, prop shaft, and rudder stock, varnish, engine oil and filter changes, etc.

ELECTRICAL

–12V and 120V systems with breaker panels
–2 Rolls Battery Engineering S12-230 AGM (230 amp-hour) house batteries
–One new 12V AGM starter battery
–Battery charger
–30 amp shore power cable
–Xantrex battery monitor (digital amp and volt meter)
–Small inverter that can be plugged into 12V plugs for small items like laptops
–3 large solar panels: two 100-watt panels on the coach roof; one 250 watt panel on the dodger top, for a total of 450 watts
–Solar regulator

ELECTRONICS

–Furuno radar with 25 mile radius.
–Raymarine MFD/GPS chartplotter with radar overlay mounted in the companionway on a hinged door, so it can be viewed easily in the cockpit.
–Autopilot, with hydraulic arm that connects to the tiller.
–Backup autopilot and arm
–Raymarine depth sounder and speedometer
–Furuno GPS, mounted over the nav station.
–Standard Horizon VHF radio with AIS receiver.
–Iridium satellite phone with independent exterior antenna.
–SSB radio
–Spotight with 12V extension cord can be plugged into a 12V outlet for coming into anchorages at night.

INTERIOR

CELESTE can sleep 4 comfortably, 6 if you want to race:
–Large two-person V-berth with “bedside table” and drawer/locker
–Smaller but very comfortable 2-person aft cabin with its own hanging locker.
–Two settee berths either side of the table with lee boards for sleeping on passage.
–Pilot berth above the port side settee with lee board.
–Pressure water, with new pump installed 2023.
–Hot water off the engine’s heat exchanger (6 gallon hot water tank, new in 2023) and off the shore power heater.
–Separate shower in the head.
–Manual Jabsco saltwater head, new 2024.
–15 gallon holding tank, new 2017, like-new condition.
–Spectra Ventura watermaker makes 6 gallons an hour at about 6-8 amps.
–Foot pump fresh water at galley and head sinks
–2 fresh water tanks holding about 80 gallons total.
–Saltwater hand pump at galley sink.
–Force 10 propane stove and oven in the galley. Two burner stove top.
–Propane grill on the stern pulpit, spare new Dickinson BBQ.
–Refrigerator with Engels compressor using only 2-4 amps when it runs. This is an unusually efficient compressor designed in Japan.
–Fully equipped galley with pots and pans, silverware, plates and bowls, mugs and glasses, cooking utensils, dishtowels, placemats, Bialetti coffee pot, baking dishes, cutting boards, dish rack, etc.
–All LED lights throughout the cabin and for tricolor and anchor light.
–Two fans in the cabin
–Three cabin heaters (great for cruising beautiful cold places like Alaska, New Zealand, and Tasmania): Up in Alaska, owner used the Refleks gravity fed diesel heater (no electricity necessary) the most. It is also great for putting a kettle on. “Bus” heater, which runs off the engine’s heat exchanger with a fan; also warms the cabin very quickly. There is also an Espar forced air heater with a separate furnace in the lazarette installed.

SAILS AND RIGGING

–Asymmetrical spinnaker (blue with yellow stars on it to echo her name!), great in light air, original but like-new condition, in a nice sail bag that makes setting and packing it easy.
–Carbon fiber spinnaker pole, new in 2017
–Brand new (2024) roller furling 120% genoa, never used.
–High-cut Yankee roller furling jib for strong winds, original but excellent condition, almost never used.
–Staysail, original, but still in excellent condition. (Hanks onto the removable inner forestay.)
–Storm jib, new in 2014, never used. Hanks onto the inner forestay, a bit smaller than staysail and with an orange top to it.
–Mainsail built in 2017, that has about 8,000 miles on it. Good condition.
–New mainsail cover (2024)
–Rigging and mast inspected in 2025, found to be in excellent condition
–Original keel-stepped aluminum mast, in very good condition
–All new standing wire rigging in 2017, by Port Townsend Rigging
–New running backstays in wire and Spectra, 2021, never been used, stowed below decks to keep out of the sun
—Harken roller furler on forestay
–Removable inner forestay
–New rope brakes for reefing lines 2021
–New halyards 2018

DECK AND EQUIPMENT

–2 Mantus Marine “new generation” anchors:
–45 pound anchor at the bow with 100ft of stainless steel 5/16in chain (new in 2021, barely used, and 300 feet of 3/4 inch rode.
–35 pound anchor at the stern. Can be used either as a stern anchor or as a spare for the main anchor.
–Electric anchor windlass – switch replaced 2021.
–Nesting rowing dinghy – 10ft 4in when assembled, 4 feet 4 inches when it nests – fits perfectly between capstan and cabin.
–2 brand new pairs of oars, one from West Marine, one from Shaw and Tenney in Maine.
–Danforth dinghy anchor with line.
–Aluminum boat hook
–Gaff for fishing
–Deck brush
–All the necessary (and beyond!) sailing hardware – snatch blocks, spare shackles, blocks, etc.
–Jack lines to clip into for sailing offshore
–Throw cushions for the cockpit
–Canvas dodger in good condition, with windows in excellent condition
–Compass
–Wind vanes: Aries wind vane
–Tiller steering, which is simple, low maintenance, and makes the wind vane work a lot more effectively

SAFETY EQUIPMENT

–Jordan Series Drogue, new in 2014, never used.
–4-man Revere life raft in hard case, mounted on deck.
–EPIRB and ditch bag.
–Life jackets : 1 hydrostatic, 2 that inflate on contact with water, 2 spare orange foam ones.
–Katadyn manual water maker for use in emergencies
–Flares, fire extinguishers, fog horn
–Manual depth sounder to take soundings from the dinghy
–Tethers, jack lines
–Strobe lights to attach to life jackets
–Handheld GPS
–Iridium Satellite phone with hard-wired external antenna for superior reception, and OCENS Satellite Systems “Sidekick” router
–Bilge Pumps: electric new in 2026 and Whale manual
–Plugs for burst seacocks, bulldog clamps for rigging, etc.

OTHER

–Pretty much every tool you can think of:
–Battery powered grinder, sander, skill saw, jigsaw
–Lots of hand tools like screwdrivers, wrench sets, pliers, wire cutters, socket sets, torque wrench, grease gun, multimeter, prop puller, etc.
–Pretty much every spare you can think of: plumbing, wiring, sail repair kit and sticky-Dacron, spare pressure water pump, sailing hardware (blocks, shackles, etc), fasteners of all kinds, spare propeller. Paint, sandpaper, brushes, solvents, West System epoxy.
–Fishing gear: handline, rods, lures, leaders, weights, club, knives, etc
–Jerry cans for fuel and water
–Buckets, hand bilge pumps
–Bedding: sheets, towels, pillows, blankets