Our first sail

In January we have really started to get ready for our adventure, Judith has stopped working now and we are busy clearing the house and preparing to move on to Island Girl in March. We have still found time to go down to Gosport and we have to take the boat to get the mast removed in preparation for the standing rigging (the wires that hold the mast up ) to be replaced. Before the mast is removed we managed to get out on the Solent and have a sail, the weather was cold and there was a stiff breeze but we had fun and the boat handled well. We… Read More

Continue Reading

Our Boat

We have found a boat that we think will meet our needs for the next few years. We have purchased an Island Packet 35 “Island Girl”.  Having had a sea trial we took ownership on Friday 19th October and spent the weekend starting to sort the boat out. We have not been out sailing at the weekend but did venture out into Portsmouth Harbour to go to the fuel dock. (The picture below was taken after this trip to  prove that we got back in one piece.) The boat was launched in 1990 but is in pretty good shape, it has good living accommodation and as a long keel boat should be comfortable when making passages. We… Read More

Continue Reading

The hunt for a boat may be at an end

We have enjoyed the excuse over the last few months to travel around the UK looking at boats, we have even had good weather and palm trees as you can see. Almost sorry that the excuse to visit different parts of the coast and look over other people’s boats each week has gone away.  We are in the process of finalising the purchase of a boat, I do not want to say too much until the deal is finalised and the boat is ours but keep watching and we post details latter we hope that the boat will be ours before the end of the month. 

Continue Reading