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

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Fog - and lots of it

On Wednesday, the fog / mist hung around most of the day. This morning, about 5am, it was just lovely - a real pea souper.. Visibility in the harbour at St Peter Port was about 70 yards and then dropping to more like 10 intermittently. Did we fancy going into St Sampsons to get diesel at 7:10 unable to see anything and then making a channel crossing glued to the radar or did we fancy turning over and sleeping a little more? The answer really shows the difference between vacations and liveaboard life. On holiday, as the boat is well kitted out with great radars, plotters, PC navigation, AIS etc and has redundancy built in, we would have said: "OK, a tiring 12/18 hours to get to  Dartmouth / Falmouth but let's do it". Now, why bother? The fog is going to disappear in a day so....

The boat is built to manage heavy seas and kitted out for relatively simple navigation and watchkeeping in poor visibility / at night. Like most south coast boaters, we've spent many hours trundling along in thick fog....  However, it is tiring sitting watching the radar especially when crossing the busy shipping lanes and the crew doesn't like trying to spot pot markers out to sea in the fog much either. If something goes wrong with equipment, you have a harder time in the fog so, another couple of hours sleep instead. Tough life...

We moved the fuel appointment to Monday as the shipping forecast had "rough" for the middle of the English Channel on Friday with the waves right on the nose of the boat if we headed for Falmouth. No big pressure to leave or get anywhere at any specific time, so we will stay put, do some more polishing (poor boat really looks sad after the winter snow and ice, then the early season rain) and enjoy the Guernsey pace of life a little longer. No more cruise liner visits planned so I think we get our island back too.
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