Our Boats

I sailed a lot as a teenager. My first sailing was with my Dad in a Heron, a small 16' skiff. Dad and I then graduated to a Hobie 14' catamaran. Most of our sailing was on Lake Macquarie on the NSW North Coast. Dad went on to sail several small sloops (I think the first one was an Endeavour 24') on Sydney Harbour before he 'graduated' to larger trawler style power boats.

My sporting life then started to revolve around flying sailplanes and I spent many years on dusty airfields, accruing about 1600 hours. So when Megan and I decided to take up a sport we could do together (gliding is a very solitary sport), we returned to my first love of catamarans.

Our first boat was a Hobie 16' cat that we bought off Ebay for about $1500.

 Gotta love the 70's coloured mainsail. We had a lot of fun learning to race this boat. It was tricky with our combined weight (guess who's mainly to blame here!!) to balance this boat on the wire, so we had a few interesting spills. The most interesting was sailing up to the Great Sandy Straits from Tin Can Bay. We were abeam the bar when the deck and hull decided to part company.

 This led to us sinking in a rather dramatic fashion, a rescue by a journalist in a small tinnie (who put the next photo into the local newspaper), de-rigging the boat (mast and all) into the tinnie, and a 3 hour tow by the coast guard back to Tin Can Bay. Can't say we don't know how to have fun!

 So then it was time to graduate to something a bit more serious. We bought a Nacra 5.8. After our first break-neck sail, I think I said to Megan "We might have bitten off a bit more than we can chew!".

 We named the Nacra 'Boudicca' (cause she was a mean bitch queen that gave it to the Romans) and she was a wonderful boat. Fast, very controllable, much better for our combined weight. Did I say fast!!

We raced this boat on the Richmond River, out of a small sailing club. There were around 4 5.8's and several other multihulls, so it was good racing. However, the idea of cruising was starting to brew, and the we were getting to the end of our 'athletic years', so we started looking around for a cruising boat.

The idea of multihulls had caught our imagination, as had the thought of being able to trailer a boat to far-flung cruising grounds like the Whitsundays. So we bought a folding trimaran - Tridents.

 We flew down to Adelaide to inspect the boat. Its a stretched Trailer Tri 720 (actually 8.5 metres) built by Peter Boyd in S.A.  It was the most marvellous boat, fast to sail, easy to maintain, very seaworthy. Our first attempt to launch her into the river at our old sailing club ended up with the boat and the tractor bogged with a rising tide. Lots of fun!

We ended up keeping the boat on a swing mooring in Emigrant Creek (up the Richmond river a ways) which reduced our rigging time. We still raced the boat but started to make foray's down to Iluka, up to Byron, and generally exploring the open ocean.

We took this boat cruising in the Whitsundays and the experience just took our breath away. Sailing, camping out, diving on the reefs, it planted the idea that we might like to go cruising long term. So we started to think about the 'big boat'. We were still multihull fans, I loved big cruising trimarans, and we looked at a few. However, when Megan saw a friends Hitch-Hiker catamaran, she was sold on the space and room of a cat.

So we ended up making the biggest mistake of our sailing career. Our thinking was to buy a big cat, spend 3 years outfitting it in preparation for retirement, then sailing it to the Mediterranean. We bought Catch Cry for the price of a small house.

Everything about this boat was wrong. On our delivery sail down from the Gold Coast, we overheated one engine, were motoring over the Ballina Bar (probably one of the most challenging river bars on the NSW coast) when we picked up a floating rope that was attached to .... an anchor! Some kind person (and we know who!!) had left their anchor locker unfastened while crossing the bar, promptly lost their anchor so just cut it away.

After improvising a bread knife on a boat hook to cut away the line, we sailed off the bar, repaired the other engine and I had the joy of my first docking attempt in 4-5 knots of current with only one engine, followed by a very public diving attempts in my knickers to cut the rope off the prop.

Our experiences with this boat went down hill from here. On bunkering the water tanks, we found the starboard hull awash, the tank top was rotten. We found other rot in the boat (it was glassed cedar strip construction, a 44' Chamberlain design). It was a monster to maintain, I found all my weekends taken up with boat maintenance, we had no time to actually sail and enjoy the boat. It dragged its mooring blocks (nothing like getting a phone call at school to say that your boat is on the rocks!), and other assorted woes.

When I found myself starting to have panic attacks at night, worrying about the size of our white elephant, we realised that we had to sell the boat for the sake of our mental health. Unfortunately, we sold it just after the GFC, and lost a bundle.

 It was a long time before we thought we wanted to go to sea again, but after struggling to learn to play golf, and realising that this was NOT our idea of retirement, we ventured onto the water again. We returned to our love of trimarans, and bought a small Farrier Tramp. (Actually, Megan bought this boat, it was her first vessel).

This was a great little day sailer, we took her out on Sydney Harbour, toured the Gippsland lakes, sailed on Lake Burley Griffen, and it washed away the bad experiences with Catch-Cry.

Farrier designs great boats, this little 20' was so seaworthy, I never hesitated taking her out to sea, crossing the bar. It was old fashioned CSM fibreglass (probably laid up with a chopper gun), but the boat will last forever, tough as nails.

Which brings us up to today. We re-visited our cruising plans, and realised that buying a boat in Australia made little sense when we wanted to cruise the Mediterranean. We also thought long and hard about multihulls. We've always loved the 'feel' of sailing in the groove. Trimarans have a definite 'in the groove' feeling, that was completely lacking in the big catamaran. We also realised that most of the world's cruising facilities don't cater easily to to big cats, or if they do, the expense is much greater.

So we crossed to the 'dark side' and bought a monohull. Pavlov was well within our budget (much reduced from Catch Cry's time). We bought it in Turkey, so we are already 'there', and now we only need to figure out how to get home!

Endings

Today, Indie, our labrador dog was put down. He had bone cancer and was in pain. Its reminded me just how big a transition this life change is for us. At the moment, the boat is far away, out of touch. Everything in our home is coming to an end. My car is for sale, the house is up for rent, most of our possessions are either being sold, given away or stored in the shed. We are 'shrink-wrapping' most of the things we have valued and owned, putting them away where we'll probably forget them. The teaching term is winding up, we are saying goodbye to students. I've finished a Master's degree that I've been working on for the last 2.5 years. Term ends next week, and we will vacate our house the week after.

Its like our old life is coming to an end. It feels like a death to allow a new life. A door closing so that something new can emerge. But it isn't easy. Giving up working is giving up a lot of identity, a lot of what defined me. Giving up our home is another loss of identity. Megan and I have had a wonderful life here, we've made a home and a life together, later in life. Indie's dying has really made me reflect on the closing off of so many life theme's. So there's a sense of loss, a vague feeling of insecurity and anxiety that steals over me in the quiet hours of the night.

Waiting for the birth pangs to begin.....

A new life

Planning this new life is a challenge. You read about all the others who have launched into their new world- trepidation, fear, anticipation- what you leave behind , what is in store- what will happen while we are gone, what new experiences are in store for us- so many possibilities. Life is going to slowww- not the frenetic pace of school, bells, exams, reports- but now the hush , the wash and the flutter of our new flag on our new home - Pavlov . Wow! is this really happening.

The bags are being packed, the weeds being poisoned, Indi , my beloved labrador is our focus too as he is dying - what a way to leave this home of ours- all ends being tied off, all "i's are dotted- insurance being organised, banks accounts being reorganised. So much to do- As I am retiring from 33 years of teaching I am at the same time inviting new possibilities. As Talking Heads said" How did I get here..."

Team work

We've just discovered how to have multiple authors on Blogger, so Megan will be able to have her say here now as well.

Megan and Michael paddling our then tender in the Whitsunday's. Back then we were sailing a Farrier TrailerTri - just a wonderful boat. 

Here's Tridents anchored just off Dugong Bay beach in the Whitsundays.

At the beginning

The starting point is always arbitrary, but must be somewhere, so here it is. Megan and I are setting off on a voyage, our own sea change. We now own a yacht on the Mediterranean, out of Fethiye in Turkey. Our plan is to spend the next 5+ years sailing the yacht home to Australia.

Home base for the first 6 months is ECE marina in Fethiye, southern coast of Turkey. Here's the backdrop to the town.

The quay goes around the entire bay. Lovely spot for morning walks.

 Here's Pavlov, a Bowman 40, still flying the Dutch flag. This photo was taken in April, 2012 when we inspected and hauled Pavlov. We eventually ended buying her.

We sea trialled her sailing over to Gocek, and hauled her out there. She needs a bottom job and a general tidy up, but passed survey well. She's so named because the previous owner wanted a short name if he had to phonetically spell it out (she was originally named Rhiannon of Birdwell), and the boat made him salivate!

Very sea-kindly boat, shallow draft (Scheel keel 1.6m), very stiff with a reasonable turn of speed. Everyone say's the Bowman is a boat that will look after her crew when the going gets tough.