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Water Symphony IV

Water Symphony IV ex Nikolas ex Altair an Olympic Adventure 47 ketch

Type of Sail: AP Cruising Genoa

Age: 31 years old

Material: Dacron

Lived in: Lavrio, Kalamaki, the Piraeus, and Mounihia harbour

Distance Travelled: more than 4000 nm (or the sail from Piraeus to Tromso Norway via the Gibraltar straits)

Places most visited: Aegina, Poros, Hydra, Spetses, Agistri, Metohi, Parapola, and Porto Heli

In the year Greece took over the presidency of the European Council for the first time, the shores of eastern Attica welcomed a brand new yacht into its waters, off the shipbuilding town of Lavrio. Thirty-one years, three owners and a few paint jobs later, she still sets sail every summer, exploring the little known Archipelago of Attica.

As Altair, she spent the first seasons of her life taking sailors on cruises all over the Aegean, while winter was spent sheltered in ports around Athens. As Nikolas, she came to know the main peopled islands surrounding Athens; Aegina, Poros, Hydra and especially Spetses. Her owner, an olympic bronze medalist in the Moscow Olympics, retired from sailing to a life of developing restaurants, and well stocked watering holes. Two such establishments were built on the island of Spetses, 54nm south-west of Athens.

Nikolas sailed every brick, building material, glass and spirit that cooled the sweltering summer evenings in Spetses for twenty years. As her current owner found out, the result of using a pleasure yacht as a bulk carrier had its consequences. He had bought a sailing boat with a burned out engine. After a refit and a refurbishment, Water Symphony IV now splits her time discovering the waters of some of the 150 islands of the Archipelago of Attica, and as a Race Committee vessel for yacht races in Athens and Spetses.