All about the boat

Loquax under construction in a frosty field in Shropshire.

The yacht, Loquax is a 56 foot ultralight cruising yacht.   LOA 56", LWL53" and beam 13'3, displacement 15 tonnes.   British registered in Kingston upon Hull, she is wholly owned by and built by Peter Edington in 1992. Peter explains why he named his yacht Loquax: "I remember when I was learning Latin at school there was a fable about a duck called Loquax (quack, quack!) which seemed so improbable since it implied that the Romans had a sense of humour. Loquax is the root of our word loquacious, meaning noisy and chattering as well as being a duckish sort of noise. I recall it came as a bit of a shock to me that anyone who could invent the grammatical passive subjunctive could also have come up with this name for a duck.

Every  journey carries risks, but the Edington's boat also carries everything you need to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, including a TV, video, a CD player, a sideband world FM radio, a fridge, cooker, washing machine and spin dryer.  After all it's going to be the Edington's home for over a year....  Peter plans to bake bread on board and stock up on locally purchased produce whenever possible.

• WATER Loquax carries two-thirds of a tonne of fresh water: plenty for drinking, cooking and washing.

• DIESEL Loquax carries one-third of a tonne of diesel: enough to be able to motor out of trouble.

• ELECTRICITY Loquax generates all her own electricity by four different means: Wind, Water (via a towed turbine), Solar, and a three and a half kilowatt petrol generator.

• AUTO PILOTS For maximum reliability, Loquax carries two auto pilots.

• SAILS Loquax is equipped with a wonderful labour-saving furling headsail : this is a sail that winds and unwinds around the foil that supports it, thereby making it unnecessary to hoist the sail manually.

• BBC VIDEO CAMERAS Loquax will be equipped with a number of video cameras, courtesy of BBC2 "Video Diaries".  These cameras can also be used for stills photography.  

• TELEPHONE Inmarsat , the satellite communications people, have kindly lent the Edingtons a "satellite telephone" and ten minutes of "airtime" everyday, so there will never be an excuse for them not to keep in touch!