About Karelia

We bought Karelia summer of 2023.

Her history before us we have slowly been puzzling together. The first payments were made in 1997, and she is registered 1998 model. Started out as a charter boat where she suffered a small blow to the seam of deck and hull, after repairs she started to spend summers in the Mediterranean and winters in the Caribbean chartering full time. 

Inn 2004 She was purchased in Mallorca and had one owner who took extra good care of her for a full 18 years. Before being sold again this time from Greece, brought back to Mallorca where the new owners where working on getting her ready for a circumnavigation and living aboard full time. Life events changed their plans a bit and they reluctantly decided that rather than have her spend 4+ years on the hard waiting for them to return to her, to let her go.

This is where we come along and fall in love with her and realise she is more than capable of hosting our large family and taking us on our adventures for the next few years.

She is a Beneteau 50 or sometimes called Beneteau Farr 50. Designed by Bruce Farr with an interior by Armel Briand.  Built in France, from 1995 until 2004, with 200 boats built, Karelia is hull number 103.

She has a solid fibreglass hull and deck is balsa-cored. She has a Masthead sloop rig, with two sets of swept spreaders and aluminium spars with stainless steel wire rig.

Great big swimming platform and a large cockpit that we look very much to use every night. 

She has a spade rudder and fin keel (shoal draft) with dual wheels helm

She carries 1000 litres of water and 500l of diesel 

The Farr 50 came with many interior layout options. Our Karelia has four cabin, 4 heads interior with a extra crew quarters in the bow. A layout we sought after as we were looking to accommodate our large family of 7.

Why this particular ship

We have been looking for a family cruiser for a few years now, and always seem to come back to the same few boats. Most designed by Farr, robust build, proven blue water sailboats that are still quite modern and have plenty of space for a large family. 

Karelia showed up on a very interesting time point for us, where we had spent the previous weeks and months looking for a more permanent land based housing without much luck. 

One week we had decided to move to a rented larger family villa in a beautiful little town on the Island of Menorca. We had so to started pulling the first line in the signature box, when the kids started talking about how nice it is to be be able to walk to school and they would prefer continue being in our cosy little apartment until we found “our” home, not to move to yet another rented building where we couldn’t make things our own. 

Feeling a bit defeated, dad sat down on the sofa and like so often before this started to look through his feeds for a potential boat to spend days and weekends on around the island.

This is where Karelea showed up all of a sudden, on the hard on the next island over. It was a perfect opportunity to take a trip over to Mallorca. To take a look at one of our top live aboard boats that we have usually found in countries further away or in a price range beyond our budget.

A day trip visit later, we decided to make an offer and bought her.

Technical Data

  • Year built: 1998

  • Shipyard: Beneteau

  • Model: 50 / Farr 50

  • Length: 14.98 M

  • Width: 4.48 M

  • Draft: 1.80 M

  • Displacement: 20.06 ton

  • Mast height above deck:

  • Water: 1000 Litres

  • Disel: 500 litres

  • Motor: Yanmar 4JH2-DTE 65 KW 

  • 4 double berths and 2 single berths

For technical and navigation equipment on board, we stick with what is necessary for sailing and safety, but perhaps not the finest, newest most expensive.

But we have room for plenty of non sailing specific equipment for fun days out and other activities. 

Paddle boards, complete diving sets, musical instruments, more camera gear than we know what to do with, to name a few.