Feb 28, 2005--Laird Biography
by Kate and Hamish Laird

	Hamish and Kate.

Welcome aboard Seal. We're the 56' foot bare aluminum cutter anchored in the shallow corner of the anchorage, amongst the dinghies and the 20-footers.
The two kids climbing around are Helen (4) and Anna (almost 3). Hamish and Kate are probably installing something--we're still building the boat as we go.

When you come up behind us in a dinghy, you'll see the first unusual thing about
Seal--the rudder is folded in half and sticking out past the stern. On deck, you can peer down and see the lifting keel--a 5 ton swinging centerboard, not a straight up and down daggerboard.

The second thing that brings questions from passersby is four spools of polypropelene line on the coach roof. Each one carries 600 feet of floating line for tying off to trees or rocks in anchorages without swinging room.

Seal's first sail, Newburyport, MA

Why have we built a boat like this?

Hamish (43) hated sailing (i.e. racing) when he grew up in the Isle of Wight. He was a mountaineer and climber who paid for his habits by building boats; avocation and vocation came together in 1987 when he helped build one of the first Southern Ocean charter yachts, Pelagic. He sailed on the maiden voyage to Antarctica and spent much of the next 12 years aboard, including six years as the full-time skipper. He's made a dozen voyages to Antarctica, on Pelagic and as "ice pilot" aboard numerous super yachts. He's sailed several times to South Georgia, the Falklands, and knows the waters near Cape Horn and Tierra del Feugo far better than those around his homeport of the Isle of Wight.

Kate (36) started off sailing in dinghies and working on whale watching boats, before sailing across the Pacific with a family of five. She spent another two years in the Pacific on a square rigger, then bought a 28-footer and sailed her around Maine in the summers, writing and teaching in the winters. A stint reporting on the BOC (now Around Alone) and working as shore crew on one of the boats made her want to sail in the Southern Ocean, so she took up writing about the BT Global Challenge in the hopes of securing a place on one of the boats, and sailed as a foredeck hand from Sydney to Cape Town--44 days very much in the Southern Ocean.

	Seal wing and wing, Charleston to Bahamas.

We met courtesy of a last-minute cancellation on Pelagic. Kate and a photographer jumped at the chance of sailing to Antarctica and writing articles about it. Hamish was the skipper. He invited Kate back as crew the next season and we spent the next few years working in the Southern Ocean in the southern summers, then cruising Maine and Nova Scotia as a busman's holiday in the northern summers. A stint racing on Hamish's brother's boat in the south of France seemed like a pretty good honeymoon, so we married shortly thereafter before heading back to the Antarctic again.

Helen and Anna were the catalyst for spending a few years ashore and building a boat of our own, designed specifically for chartering in high latitudes. We spent a year working on the design with Chuck Paine and Ed Joy, moved to Canada for six months while Kanter Yachts built the hull, and then trucked her back to New Hampshire for completion. We finally fitted the rig in November, installed the heater, and set sail for the south on Christmas Day, 15 degrees Farenheit. We hope to put a few thousand miles under the keel before heading to Greenland next in June.

You can find out more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.