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We have built Beruska with knowledge, love, skill and unheard of determination over about 15 years. Beruska is a Czech name that translates as Lady Bug.

An ultimate safety and a maximum comfort were the most important criteria to which Beruska was designed and built. An 'ice-breaker-like' description is not an exaggeration. The living space, comparing to monohuls, is unbelievable. Same applies to the deck space. There we had a backyard with our own garden and a full size barbecue. And when taking into consideration the amount of storage both pontoons provide, you may never realize that we were living on a boat. You see, the boat was supposed to be our retirement home.

Beruska is a sailboat built in a Polynesian style as a trimaran. She consist of the main hull and two smaller pontoons (outriggers). Comparing to a regular sailboat, Beruska does not have a ballast that prevents sailboats from capsizing. This stability is provided by the pontoons. And because she does not carry the ballast, and is entirely built using wood, she is unsinkable under the most circumstances. She was rigged as a two-masted staysail schooner and yes, under full canvas, she could fly.

For every part of the boat, from a hull, masts, pontoons, sails, rigging, etc., before Frantisek could built it, he had to make its blueprints, make stress calculations and, in the first place, he had to keep dimensions of individual parts as well as dimensions of entire assemblies within the design parameters and specifications. Or the sails would not fit, for example. If you imagine that the boat hull is built in the first three years of the boat construction, sails are manufactured during the winters of those years, masts are fabricated and assembled some ten years later, then still after one more year, when sails go up for testing, you should not be surprised to see the designer (Frantisek) and the crew (Anicka) await the results with some anxiety. Don't forget that each individual sail system consists of a complex canvas fabrication, lines, pulleys, winches, cleats and other various parts. And when the fifth sail goes up without a glitch, then the crew has all reasons to celebrate. We departed from the marina under power in the morning of a sunny day to go test the sails, but still before sunset of that same day we proudly sailed back to the marina having only a light breeze to pull Beruska gently onward.

On that day the boat was essentially completed after some fifteen hectic years, but there are no words that could express our feelings that we experienced that day, in essence the feelings of a 'job well done'.

We cruised the Great Lakes the following three years. First we had to learn how to handle Beruska. You know, a 65 ft. two-masted staysail schooner is rather a complex nautical system that includes total of eight sails, 50 horsepower engine, 2 kW diesel generator, three anchors, wind generator, extensive electronics used for the operation of the boat as well as for safety, etc., etc., and each system requires unique knowledge and various diverse skills that you have to acquire for your own comfort and safety. And I don't mention a marine navigation because that is a relatively easy thing to do having proper nautical charts, tables and a GPS radio, which is a marvel by itself, but is easy to use. (Of course a marine sextant was included as the ultimate navigational backup.) We were also improving Beruska's equipment and were preparing her to sail from the Great Lakes down the Lawrence River all the way to the Atlantic, the Caribbeans and then further on. But by cruising the Great Lakes we also learned about, and had to come to terms with, our age limitations and, first of all, our health limitations (*) and with great regrets we decided in 1999 to sell Beruska.

This decision was not easy to make. It meant that even if Frantisek came so close to fulfil his lifelong dream, his dream will never materialize . . . .

     (*) About three years after Beruska was sold, Frantisek suffered a stroke and shortly after he undrewent a coronary
           bypass operation in a Ft. Myers hospital - it is just a reminder how powerless we are in respect to God's will.

Anicka and Frantisek Slintak
(November of 2009)

Postscript: Even if we can't live our dreams on Beruska, we sail world oceans on cruise ships and in the comfort
                  of those ships we are visiting faraway lands and we carry the most beautiful memories of Beruska with us.