About us and the boat

About us and the boat:

We were lucky enough to retire early at the start of 2013 so we could head off and "live the dream" on board our Nordhavn 47 Trawler Yacht. The idea is to see some of the planet, at a slow 6 - 7 knots pace. There are no fixed goals or timings, we just had a plan to visit Scotland and then probably the Baltic before heading south.

The idea is to visit the nicer areas in these latitudes before heading south for warmer weather. If we like somewhere, we will stay for a while. If not, we will just move on. So, for the people who love forward planning and targets, this might seem a little relaxed!

If anyone else is contemplating a trawler yacht life, maybe our experiences will be enough to make you think again, or maybe do it sooner then you intended!

The boat is called Rockland and she is built for long distance cruising and a comfortable life on board too. If you want to see more about trawler yachts and the Nordhavn 47 in particular, there is a link to the manufacturers website in our "useful stuff" section. For the technically minded, there is a little info and pictures of the boat and equipment in the same section

Regards

Richard and June

Friday, 7 June 2013

Holyhead to Bangor
Our 4pm Thursday departure was slow thanks to a small inbound tanker waiting for a pilot. When we got out of the harbour, he decided to circle around waiting for the pilot boat in a wide arc exactly where we wanted to head. Ho hum, big diversion at the start of the trip that added 30 mins or so to our run and meant we had a tougher time against the tide at the other end too. Such is life.

The traffic separation zone (off the Skerries) was quiet. For quiet, read almost empty. Only one ship in it and no need for any course alterations. However, we were good people and crossed the lanes at 90 degrees just in case someone was bored and tracking us on the radar / AIS.

For this trip the wind was on the starboard bow and so the wave height didn’t matter that much – the stabilisers were very effective and allowed the crew to prepare dinner with no stress at all. Eating it was, unsurprisingly, easy enough too. Passing the Isle of Man were two liners (see, our liner curse continues) that looked like Xmas illuminations. They were both heading for Belfast so we reckon that we should postpone our visit there until Saturday.

Just off the coast of Ireland, whilst the crew was on watch, we encountered a real flotilla of fishing boats out of Portavogie. All clustered together and moving like a swarm of ants. Apart from them, it was a simple enough trip. No pictures, I’m afraid as it was dark for most of the way.

Arriving into Bangor Marina we had the all-time friendliest reception we’ve had anywhere. More about that later on (just to build the suspense you understand and keep you reading in future).

Berthed in Bangor:




For the tekkies:

An oddity. We have 2 depth sounders fitted. One drives the B&G instruments, the other the Furuno gear. When we got to 100 metres depth, the B&G unit set off a shallow water alarm and said we only had 0.1 metres underneath us. It drops the leading 1 and then thinks “oh dear no water here, better warn them”. A bit strange when you are in the middle of the Irish Sea with big ships all around you! As it got even deeper the alarm stopped of course (suddenly we had a whole 10 metres again!) but came back when it got shallower. The Furuno gear behaved of course.
 Furuno 1, B&G 0…. Sorry Phil (he used to sell B&G kit).


Apart from that, nothing to report.
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