Power and MotorYacht Feature Article - Waterfront: Adventures Abound

The Ratcliffes have a familial tradition of adventuring; they want to pass that on to their two sons.

Anchored off the quiet shores of Lake Wānaka on New Zealand’s South Island, Keri and Bevan Ratcliffe rose to a sunrise shining through the cockpit of Happy Happy, their 2019 Jeanneau 695, and onto their two sons, Koa and Bodhi. It was the family’s first overnighter and the boys, now 6 and 3, respectively, were tucked away in a makeshift berth amidships. Just the day before, they’d exhausted themselves with a bounty of activities: paddleboarding and stick-hut-building, fishing and grilling with Dad, and walking along the beach on Stevensons Island while holding Mom’s hand. They capped their family’s milestone with stargazing and a kids’ flick. For the adults, a local red.

At 21 feet, 6 inches length overall, Happy Happy fit the bill for the growing Ratcliffe family, who were, at the time of her purchase, expecting the arrival of Bodhi. Their previous boat, a Maxum 1800 MX, was great for loud thrill rides, towing banana boats, and helping Koa catch his first fish (a rainbow trout), but the uptick in luxury, the overnight capabilities, and the security of the Jeanneau amongst New Zealand’s dynamic, unpredictable weather were all the Ratcliffes needed to convince themselves to upgrade. And despite the additional 3 feet of length, relative to the Maxum, Bevan says Happy Happy is easier to manage.

“With the Maxum, I’d be sort of knee-deep, holding on to a rope, pulling it off or onto the trailer,” Bevan recalls. “With the Jeanneau, I’m inside; I’ve got bow-thrusters, so it’s sort of dry-feet stuff. We’ve gotten into a bit of a rhythm, where it seems to be a bit easier, even though it’s bigger.”

With Lake Wānaka a mere five-minute drive from home, the Ratcliffes try to get on the water at least once a week during the summer, and whenever temperatures permit, during the winter too. Being on the water, in the outdoors, is where they find comfort. Though they each hail from different parts of the world—Bevan from New Zealand, Keri from South Africa—their childhoods were not dissimilar: Both parents grew up with the outdoors being core parts of their lives.

“I can’t say that we ever watched TV, when we were younger,” Keri recalls. “My parents were very similar to how we are with the boys; they brought us up with adventures and hiking, and they had quite a big friendship circle. Every Sunday, we would all get together and would take the boats out, spend the day water-skiing, barbecuing—or we would go places and just sit in the sun. That’s the set of memories that I have, and it’s just happiness—like, not having a care in the world. And that’s what I want for my kids. I don’t want them to be influenced by technology and social media. I just want them to be little boys and have the best time.”

Bevan also enjoyed his own adventures with his family. The Gisborne native grew up surfing, kayaking, and canoeing; he also sailed aboard his father’s Sabre and Kestrel trailer-sailors, mostly on Lake Waikaremoana. As a young boy, he recalls sailing out to a campsite with his father and pitching a tent aboard their 12-foot dinghy, with just a “chilly bin” (a cooler) in tow—and camping on the beach when one of the four-berth trailer-sailors couldn’t sleep the entire party.

After earning a degree at the University of Otago in Dunedin, Bevan returned to the North Island, moving to Auckland and bringing along his father’s 18-footer, but he seldom used it in the nearby harbor in his short time there. “We tended to use the yachts more like a floating caravan,” he said. “The good thing about the trailer-sailors is they’ve got a dropdown centerboard, so you can lift up the centerboard and literally put the boat right up on the sand; so, you’re literally walking off the boat and onto the beach. I think [having Happy Happy is] just building on our own childhoods and wanting to replicate that, in a way, and provide [Koa and Bodhi] those opportunities.”

Considering the significance of adventuring in Keri’s and Bevan’s respective upbringings, it’s perhaps unusual that decade-long stints in the United Arab Emirates actually brought the two together. Both educators, they arrived in the Middle East in 2010: Bevan the head of a private school, Keri an instructional coach for teachers at an international school. For Keri, the transient nature of fellow educators made it difficult to find a long-term partner. 

Four years into their jobs, Keri and Bevan met through a mutual friend: a teammate of Bevan’s from the Abu Dhabi Harlequins, a rugby club. Of Bevan, Keri says: “He was just so down to earth, genuine. I felt like he was actually a South African, just because he would say some Afrikaans words, and he was friends with my friends. We just got along like a house on fire.”

The two yearned to get out of the city. Once Keri finished her contract in Dubai and moved to Abu Dhabi, they purchased a Jeep Wrangler Sahara. Taking a main road out of the city, they would soon be met by a daunting, open desert at every sightline. Fortunately, Bevan was already familiar with a few of the spots they would visit, having previously run the routes with friends. The two mostly sought out wadis, seasonally dry valleys and ravines that occasionally have waterfalls and oases, and other natural campsites.

They occasionally set up camp outside resorts, garnering praise and encouragement from passersby. What really captivated Bevan and Keri, though, were the isolated shorelines remembered only by their coordinates—like 24.15033° N, 53.01689° E. “It wasn’t even on sat nav,” Keri recalls. “It was literally out in the middle of nowhere: this blue, turquoise ocean with white sand. We went and camped there, but no one [was] around. And you would hear the little desert foxes around the tents at night. It was gorgeous—no one there, no pollution, no nothing.” 

Settling in New Zealand with Bodhi on the way,, they purchased Happy Happy. Within a week of retrieving their yacht, the Ratcliffes embarked on their maiden voyage, hosting Bevan’s mother and her husband. The itinerary was simple yet memorable: get their feet wet (literally and figuratively), find a shore from which they would anchor, have lunch, and return by mid-afternoon. Since then, the Ratcliffes have explored most of the crystal-clear waters of Lake Wānaka, frequenting Stevensons Island the most for its camping. And there’s no end in joy from having Bodhi serve as first mate from Bevan’s lap, watching the boys pretend-play as sailors, or teaching new knots. While the 21-foot Merry Fisher is the perfect overnight vessel for New Zealand’s calmer waters, Bevan is thinking of bigger, offshore adventures as the kids get older. “I’ve got sort of a dream, but it’s a bit of a funny thing,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to buy a big catamaran, like a Lagoon [450] or Leopard, and maybe do a bit of traveling with the family, but that’s sort of a wish list. … We’ve watched [the YouTube channel] Sailing La Vagabonde for about 4 or 5 years now. It’d be a big, big shift for us as a family, but it’s something we do think about.”

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