Cuba and beyond
When I first saw 40 Mile, a 34ft yacht covered stem to stern in green and black mildew, I thought she’d been abandoned. Her iron keel was rusty and the hull/keel fairing was so cracked it scared me to look at it. So when the new owners Eddy Ruffin and Taylor Henschel told me of their plans to sail across the Caribbean Sea, I was astonished. She was the worst-looking boat in the yard; the bottom paint was peeling off in spots, leaving the hull looking like the surface of the moon… it would take months, possibly years, to get her into shape. But, being in the midst of the difficult renovation of our 38ft Ericson yacht, Walden I was ecstatic at the prospect of having neighbours with a similar project. Together, we shared the goal of leaving that dusty gravel boatyard to go cruising!
While we worked side-by-side on our boats, Eddy told me how the idea had come about…
Inspired by the many sailors who posted videos on YouTube, they’d decided to take a six-month sabbatical. While Eddy, a mechanical engineer, had sailed dinghies around Chesapeake Bay since childhood, his partner Taylor, had grown up in landlocked Oklahoma, and this was to be her first sailing experience. With a budget of $30,000 (£23,000), the Oregon-based couple searched the classifieds for a 30-35ft monohull from the 1980s or newer, in reasonable condition. After three weeks of searching, they boarded an overnight flight to south-west Florida to view a 1986 Jeanneau Sunrise 34 which they’d made a preliminary offer on. Sadly, upon arrival it was clear the boat was in a state of disrepair. Mould and mildew were rampant throughout the
