Sunday 30 August 2009

Looking at boats

This weeekend we set up a couple of veiwings of yachts that were for sale on Windermere. One was a 21ft and one was a 26ft. We were thinking that if we could buy ourselves a boat that was some where around the size we would eventually buy in the Dominican Republic then we could get some sailing practice in and take the courses that the RYA do. We are not at all convinced by what we're doing but we've set up these veiwings so we go ahead. The first boat is going to be at the public jettys near to the Windermere Ferry. This yacht looks a bit small, although when we get up close it's not that small but it's pretty basic. In fact we decided that this is a fun sailing boat, one that's fun to sail if your into sport sailing, and has enough room to sort of camp out on but there's no real facilities, just a nice sailing boat. We came away thinking that we didn't see us with that sort of a boat.
Next day, Sunday we're off to meet Pat and Dave who have a Westerley Centaur. This boat looks like a caravan on the water, and we meet them at their mooring at Cunsey woods. Dave takes us out to the boat on his dingy and we climb aboard. Now this is much more like it, at 26ft and with over six foot of head room and with all the gubbins, cooker, sink, head,(toilet in nautical speak).
This feels just what we want, it feels like a big boat, but not too big, and it is not at all flashy, it's the sort of boat we would maybe buy in the Dominican republic. We leave thinking that we've found our boat, but on our way back we chat through our feelings and although it's great we start to think that we're going down the wrong road here. We decide that looking at boats has been a good thing, but that really, we just need to learn how to sail. So do we need a yacht at this moment, and the answer is no, what we need is to do the course and after talking to the instructors re-evaluate and not think of spending 10,000 on a yacht, that can wait till we get to the Caribbean. But it's been an interesting weekend, and I think we've moved our adventure on an inch or two.

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