She launched in July 2010 and boasts a beam of 42 feet, which, in case you’re counting, is just a smidge wider than the beam aboard the jaw-dropping, 288-foot Perini Navi Maltese Falcon. Che displaces 115 tons and has a mainsail that’s nearly 4,200 square feet, giving her a maximum speed of 25 knots. It is truly awesome to watch Capt. Daniel Rabasse propel her through wind and waves. We reached only about 12 knots as we cruised from St. Maarten to St. Barths during the notorious Christmas Winds, but even that speed made it feel like Che was absolutely flying.
Yet, she also felt as though she was barely moving, with a heeling angle so subtle that it’s almost indiscernible, compared with a monohull’s. Che’s balance is evident when she’s under power too, a fact I discovered while in the aft starboard cabin my first afternoon aboard. I was literally at the waterline, taking a shower, and didn’t even feel or hear Che moving. The only reason I knew that Rabasse had turned on the engines, raised the anchor and throttled forward is that we were in an entirely different harbor when I returned to the afterdeck about 20 minutes later.
It’s on that afterdeck that I got to know Zorgman, a South African native whose cooking style and world view have evolved along with those of Che’s owners. While Zorgman says she will cook whatever guests desire, her specialty is the owners’ preferred regimen: macrobiotic.
“Macrobiotic means to look at the larger picture of life, to see how we came to be,” she says. “It starts with the food we eat. Things like hypoglycemia, these are modern illnesses that come because we are eating to extreme. Macrobiotic food goes very well with the yin-yang of this boat. After two to four weeks of this diet, it feels like a cloud lifting off your head. You have clarity. Everything is functioning better.”
