 Gyatso
is a 1985 Tayana 37
sailboat that we purchased in
Yarmouth, Maine
in
October 2005. We
are the fourth owners.
Designed by
American naval architect Robert Perry and built in Taiwan
by the Ta-Yang Yacht Building Company, the
Tayana 37 has a classic look with its bowsprit and canoe-ended stern. This
sturdy double-ender was originally designed as a couple's world cruiser -- a
boat that could be taken anywhere in the world. Our T37 is hull
number 452 out of more than 600 built since the 1970s.
Gyatso has a cutter rig (pictured left)
with a fully-battened mainsail and two foresails: a self-tending staysail and a
Yankee. Both are roller-furling. Our Tayana is outfitted
with a 30 hp Yanmar diesel engine.
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The
Owners and Crew
 David Barker and
Lisa
Borre have been boating and sailing for most of their lives. From 1997 to 2005,
the husband-wife team logged
4,500 miles together aboard their previous boat, About Time, a 32'
Endeavour sloop, on the Chesapeake
Bay, the Atlantic Coast from New England to Georgia, and all five of the North
American Great Lakes.
After purchasing Gyatso in
Maine in October 2005, David and Lisa moved aboard and began cruising
full-time. They sailed the 20-year old boat back to their homeport in
Annapolis, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay and then to Florida, the Bahamas and
back again -- an extended "shakedown" cruise while completing a major
refit.
In November 2006, they joined the Caribbean 1500 rally and sailed
offshore from the Chesapeake Bay to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
They spent six months cruising in the Eastern Caribbean and went as far south as
Grenada before turning north to Antigua and then crossing the Atlantic to Europe in the summer of 2007 with the
ARC Europe Rally. They wintered-over aboard Gyatso in
Lagos, Portugal while they prepared for the next
phase of their voyage. In 2008, they sailed from Portugal through the
Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean, visiting Southern Spain,
the Balearic Islands and Sardinia before arriving in Gaeta,
Italy. In 2009, they visited Southern
Italy, including Sicily, Tunisia,
Malta, and Greece
on their way to Turkey for the winter. Gyatso was hauled-out at
Yacht Marine in Marmaris,
Turkey while David and Lisa returned to the US for what turned out
to be a four month visit. In 2010, they plan to re-launch Gyatso
in March and sail north through the Aegean Sea to Istanbul and then
into the Black Sea.
David and Lisa have logged 20,000 miles while sailing together.
The couple met while working together in Indonesia in 1996 and were married in
1998. Before setting out on their current voyage aboard Gyatso in 2005,
they lived in Annapolis, Maryland and co-founded LakeNet,
a world lakes network. They are currently cruising full-time in the Mediterranean.
Biographical
Sketches of the Owners
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 Gyatso (pronounced
"ghi-yah-tso") is
the Tibetan
word for "ocean." The most common question we get about this name is,
"What do the Tibetans know about oceans?" This gives us
the opportunity to explain that the term is also used by Tibetans to
describe the concept of vastness. For example, Gyatso Rinpoche which means “precious ocean
of wisdom" is the title that Tibetans use for His Holiness the
Dalai Lama.
While trying to create positive thought
forms about cruising full-time, David always attached the name Gyatso to the boat we would
sail away on someday. When we bought the boat, we decided it was
just the right name for the boat of our dreams. This
is why after renaming it, we
invited two senior monks at
the JaLing Tibetan
Buddhist Cultural
Center
in Baltimore,
MD, to perform a naming ceremony and
give blessings
for safe passage in December 2005 while we were docked in Annapolis.
The
manufacturer of our boat is Tayana, a name
which coincidentally is derived from the Mandarin
Chinese word for "ocean." Under previous owners, our boat was
named Cleartime and Wayward, neither of which held much meaning
for us.
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