Preparing our new boat for our first journey together wasn’t straightforward. I only had three weekends to get her ready, which involved a long drive from Plymouth to Conwy each time. Once we finally got under way the passage was far from plain sailing – we experienced bad conditions in the Irish Sea, near battery failure, electrical issues, and crew that became so seasick and confused that we had to stop at Milford Haven before waiting for a storm to pass. We then had rudder-bearing issues crossing over to Land’s End, but eventually made it to Plymouth safely. All of this was at the beginning of March and it was very cold at night.
Buying a boat, as they say, is one of the most exciting days of ownership, and having recently experienced the other most exciting day (selling our last boat) we were ready to take the plunge from a series of labour-intensive classic yachts to the simplistic pleasures of low-maintenance plastic boat ownership.
The boat we had set our hearts on was in early February where she was moored in Conwy, North Wales. The only slight downside was that we lived in Devon and I worked in Plymouth as a deputy head teacher, which meant time off wasn’t an option in term time.
