About me and sailboat Heureka                                                                                                                

Instructor and captain - Tomáš Pavlas (born 1974)

Technical progress (e.g. GPS, belay devices, weather forecasts on mobile phones, ...) today allows many more people to experience adventures at sea or in the mountains than before. Nevertheless, at sea and in the mountains you can still find peace from the hustle and bustle of the city, undergo overcoming obstacles that cannot be simply turned off. It is a unique opportunity, you can experience specific challenges that will move you and truly enrich you.

I started climbing with expeditions to the High Tatras, the Romanian Fagaras and the Alps. I then completed an instructor course with the Czech Mountaineering Association and worked for ten years at the Davys Klub Prague climbing school, co-organizing expeditions to the Alps including Mont Blanc and the Matternhorn.

After several cruises in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, I decided to build a modern, keeled sailboat of sandwich construction type Pantanal 25 (length 7.65 m, width 2.44 m, draft 1.65 m, displacement 1.5 tons, sail area 34 m2 + gennaker 65 m2, for 6 people). She is a very fast, sporty, but safe boat. From the 2025 season, the boat will be equipped with foils modeled after the first mass-produced foil sailboat Beneteau Figaro 3. At the same time, the boat is very comfortably equipped, providing comfortable beds for 4 people, a spacious salon, a kitchen with a refrigerator, a eletric ship's flush toilet. Her name is Heureka.

I have completed a number of voyages as a crew member, later as a captain and even later as the captain of my own ship, including several solo voyages. In total, I have sailed approx. 10,000 nautical miles as the captain of my own ship. I hold the international version of the Small Craft Skipper certificate for sailing boats, the SRC radiotelephone operator's license, and I have passed the captain's exams in the Republic of Croatia and at the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic for the C and B sailing areas.

I have a university degree in both technical and humanities and I also work as a lecturer.