Designed for taking parties of anglers out for fishing trips, Mitch, our Mitchell 31 MkII Sea Angler is in essence a very simple boat. There is a large open cockpit with the engine box at its centre, a wheelhouse, and a small forward cabin. We’d bought Mitch in 1999, and spent many happy days taking our children, their friends, cousins and beach toys around Poole Harbour, occasionally venturing to the Solent.
The children grew up, and Mitch became a depressing sight in the garden. In 2017, my wife Sally and I were thinking of buying a sailing boat, with the idea of an Atlantic circuit. We looked at several yachts, but decided that we couldn’t buy another boat while Mitch was so shamefully neglected, with vegetation sprouting in the bilges. We intended to clean her up ready for a quick sale.
Discussing options
Years of ditch crawling in Mitch made the draught of the sailing boats we’d inspected seem excessive, and after two hours of surprisingly successful cleaning, I had a sudden thought: “Mitch’s draught is pretty shallow, and we could probably get through the Canal du Midi.”
I’d never been canal boating, and didn’t know much about the Canal du Midi, except that it led to the Mediterranean and was too shallow for many fixed keel yachts.
We discussed our options. We could sell Mitch ‘as is’ for a small sum, buy a sailing boat, and in a few years set off on our Atlantic circuit. This would be a leap in the dark, as we didn’t have much recent cruising or sailing experience. Alternatively, it seemed that refitting Mitch was not impossible – we’d already bought a new engine, and perhaps we should make use of the boat we already had to set off that year. Plans could be made to suit our limited annual leave allocation, and Mitch’s capabilities.
We decided to take advantage of shallow draught and go through the French canals to the Med, but we knew the revamp would require a lot of work and a fair sum of money. was not designed for long-distance cruising – there was little accommodation, and no amenities, not even a water tank. The small rudder was ineffective at low speed and when going astern. Our cruising would be restricted to two weeks or so at a time. Could we to live aboard? We wrote a spreadsheet detailing the work required and cost, a pretty frightening list, but optimistic as it turned out.
