Devonport Challenge 72, CHALLENGE BUSINESS 45

Broker’s Comments

CHALLENGE BUSINESS 45 is part of an extraordinary fleet that was conceived and built to sail around the world against prevailing winds and currents – which they did with Chay Blyth’s Challenge Business. After the business stopped trading, she was sold together with her sisterships and has a very successful second life as an adventure sailing yacht and was well known as BIG SPIRIT.

Her career came to an abrupt end in 2011 when she was substantially damaged whilst ashore having a pit stop before a trip across the Atlantic. She fell, lost her rig and sustained substantial damage to her structure. In her current ownership she has been assessed by Mecal the MCA and the needed work to the structure has been overseen by them and this work is of a standard to enable CHALLENGE BUSINESS 45 to code to MCA Category 0 giving her the ability to sail commercially worldwide with charter guests onboard, provided that the rest of the refit is carried out to Mecal’s standards.

All structural steel repairs to the hull and deck have now been completed and signed off by MECAL and supported by radiography and MPI test reports. All of these reports (listed below) are available upon request. The owners worked with design engineer Jim Moore who did the design engineering for the Challenge Fleet initially, and provided the owners with the nested plates from the original design drawing of CB 45.

• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report 14/04/2014.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report 25/04/2014.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report Photogrammetry report 29/04/2014.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report Deck Plan Shape 03/2014.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report 16/11/2015.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report 02/12/2015.
• Mecal Big Spirit Rebuild report 04/05/2016.
• Big Spirit radiography report 03/05/2016.
• Big Spirit Rebuild MPI report 07/05/16.

The yacht will require a new rig and sails and other items damaged or removed will need to be replaced i.e. soft furnishings, internal furniture and linings, water maker, cabin heater and electronics package. She will also need to be filled and faired in the repair area and repainted in white with grey deck. The opportunity exists for a new owner to store the yacht at the owner’s yard either outside or in one of their build sheds in order to carry out these works. Challenge 72’s do not come onto the market very often and they are simply the last work in safe, powerful and capable adventure sailing be it the Southern Ocean or high latitude.

CHALLENGE BUSINESS 45 is being offered as is, where is with all surveys, equipment and documentation available to the current owners, passed onto her new owners.