S/V Didimos - Διδυμος

In Greek, Διδυμος (Didimos) means "twin," and carries the connotation of the Zodiac sign Gemini. We were asked at least once if Gemini was any of our signs. The Sailing Vessel (S/V) Didimos is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 40 that we believe is of 2002 vintage. It has three cabins -- two quarter berths and a v-berth -- and two heads. The galley and salon were spacious for the six of us, and the chart table was fine for our navigational needs. There is plenty of storage space for provisions, though the berths are a bit constrained for clothes lockers.

S/V Didimos Med moored

The boat is managed by The Moorings charter company. They keep the boats busy during the summer season, but Didimos is in fairly good shape. One problem it had for our cruise was worn out sails. As reported on Day 1, the mainsail tore. The jib furls perhaps 10% before it becomes very baggy, and there is no luff foam to help. The gennaker is in decent shape. While there were plenty of dock lines for our purposes, they were very worn and needed replacing.

We have taken a snapshot of Jeanneau's web site describing the Odyssey 40 here. There are specs, layouts, photos, and a feature list in their material.

The boat is a standard aft-cockpit sloop, with a sugar scoop transom/boarding ladder. The sail inventory included a jiffy-reefing main with a stack pack, a furling 120 genoa, and a medium size gennaker. We had no problems with any of the furling gear, and we did launch the gennaker a couple times.

The boat has a windlass, and with the need to Med moor essentially everywhere, the windlass gets quite a workout. The primary anchor is a plow and the backup anchor in the lazarette is a Danforth. The primary has an all-chain rode, but we didn't have any chain noise issues since we didn't anchor out on this trip.

One unique feature on a boat this size is dual helm stations. The port and starboard helms leave the walkway from the transom into the cockpit clear, and is a nice convenience. An annoyance to this setup is that the cockpit instruments are not fully duplicated at both stations, so the helmsman had to move back and forth to see speed, wind, depth and engine instruments. However, both stations have a compass, so basic steering is easy enough.

Electronics include boat speed, true/apparent wind, and depth instruments in the cockpit. There is an autopilot that tracks heading or wind angle. At the nav station, there is a VHF radio and a Garmin GPS chartplotter. The instrumentation is quite sufficient for cruising the Greek islands. A bit of inconvenience is a lack of a repeater at the nav station for the cockpit instruments, and a lack of VHF capability in the cockpit. Also, an interface between the chartplotter and the autopilot would be an improvement.

For a thirteen-day cruise with a crew of six, the S/V Didimos proved quite comfortable, and it sailed and motored well for us. The speed log is probably a little generous, often showing speeds around 8.3 to 8.5 knots. While surfing, we saw 9.5 knots, which is not unreasonable. But it is unlikely we were actually averaging close to 8 knots. The theoretical hull speed for the Jeanneau 40 would be 7.7 knots, and it's hard to "average" better than hull speed for that duration!

Nevertheless, the boat did seem to perform well, and even when depowered to reduce heeling, we maintained excellent boat speeds. Due to the necessity to reach distant destinations (four days, we went over 40 nautical miles -- not all that far, but we were on vacation planning easy day-sailing), we often motor sailed, or simply motored. The engine performed flawlessly, and one advantage to the motoring is that we were able to run the refrigeration the entire time, and we usually had plenty of hot water.

In summary, the S/V Didimos did very well for us, and is a nice charter boat.