About Belle Aurore

Belle Aurore is a 1978 Hatteras 48 LRC (Long Range Cruiser). In 2002 her previous owner had the cockpit stretched 5-feet solving what we always felt was the only flaw of the 48 LRC – a cockpit that was too small for anything other than line handling. This brought her to 53-feet and created an outdoor space that’s convenient and spacious.  These boats were built with nearly 2-inch thick hulls and everything about our Belle is heavy duty.  On one trip to Bermuda the previous owner experienced roll of 55 degrees and 15-foot seas. This was enough to bring her stabilizing fins clean out of the water – he said she just kept popping to the top.

Hatteras produced 49 of the 48-foot LRC’s and only two had a three cabin design. Belle is one of the three cabin boats. Her high profile and unique round porthole style windows gives her a classic “little ship” look. The icon Hatteras designer Jim Hargrave had a saying about the style of boats he designed; “if they can both cook why not choose the pretty one.” He pulled this off beautifully on these 48 LRC’s that starts with a proud bow that stands nearly 10-feet above the water and sweeps back to a high safe gunwale in the cockpit.

Belle has an overall length of 59-ft. 2-in. (bow pulpit to swim platform), waterline length of 48-ft. 4-in., a 16-ft. 6-in. beam and displaces 70,000-lbs. She carries 1,700 gallons of diesel, holds 540 gallons of fresh water, has a blackwater holding tank of 120 gallons, and draws 4-ft 9-inches. She has two Westerbeke generators, a 15Kw main and a 7.7kW backup.  The water maker can produce 400 gallons of fresh water in a 24 hour period. She has Gyro-gale quadra fin stabilizers to keep her roll limited in beam seas and a full long keel that protects her running gear. Her twin 4-53 Detroit diesel (4-cylinder, 2-cycle, 53-cubic inch displacement per cylinder, 140 HP) engines went into production in 1957 and were manufactured until 1987.  These are heavy duty WOT (Wide Open Throttle) motors designed to run at high RMP for extremely long periods of time. Running Belle at 1,800 RPM’s produces a fuel burn rate of less than 6-gallons per hour at hull speed (8 knots give or take current). Bringing the RPM’s down to 1,500 could, I am told, produce a burn rate that would give us a 3,000 mile range.

Since acquiring Belle in November 2011 we have embarked on an aggressive upgrade of her systems. She now sports Furuno 12kW radar, a backup 2kW Nobeltec radar, Furuno 12-inch MFD at the fly bridge and PC based Nobeltec software in the pilot house. These systems are tied together so that all navigation systems communicate. In addition to electronic upgrades Belle has new Blue Sea Systems acoustic tank monitors that display gallons and percent of full for all fuel, fresh water and black water tanks. No more running from tank to tank counting 16ths and we can even tell if our black water tank is 1/3rd full or 5/8ths full (no more red light of death).  Blue Sea Systems monitors also provide all details of our battery banks providing % of charge, input and output amps, amp hours remaining, battery temperature, etc.  Belle came with water pumps from Raz Marine which will not draw water up and only work when there is a gravity feed into the pump. Problem was, pumps were mounted about a foot above the bottom of the water tank level so it was easy to not be able to get the remaining water from a tank. That’s all solved now with 12-volt dual Shurflo pumps that monitor water requirements and ramp up and down as the need demands and a 110 volt Headhunter Mach 5. This gives us backup and great dock side and generator use water. On one invoice alone we had 311 hours of labor recorded for all the work being done. And, we can’t forget our dink. Belle came with a 13-foot Boston Whaler with a 40-hp Honda. Check out the blog for before and after pictures.

There are so many little changes we have made. Like, changing out the incandescent lights on the mast to LED… These things are “bright” “bright” and use practically no power. We installed cameras in the engine room and cockpit so I can monitor any issues that may arise in the engine room as well as monitor the Admiral as she is applying lines from the cockpit (I am blind to this area from both nav stations). We had a dedicated 110-volt power line installed directly from the inverter to under the helm so our computer can be plugged in to power at all times. And, to make sure there are no glitches, we installed an APC Power backup system that we plug the computer, monitors, and camera DVR into. Whether we are going from shore power to generator power or to 12-volt – the inverter power is continual to this location.

Currently our expert New England Yacht Sales South guys are working on the emergency engine shut downs. They were caked with paint and the years of non-use had corroded the springs so they would not function. I will be much more at ease knowing that a runaway 4-53 Detroit will not have to blow itself up at some 8,000 RPM’s before I can get it shut down. They’re also working on the transmission shifters as the detents were removed and it’s damn near impossible to know when you are in neutral or in gear. Plus, the neutral safety was removed at some point so the motors will start in gear – that will be fixed immediately.

We will be adding info to the blog pages as we progress with upgrades.