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

Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Then it got blowy - and some

You know how sometimes the weather forecast is wildly out? Well, not this time. They said it would be horrid on Monday / Tuesday and the closer it got, the more convinced we were that they were spot on. We had contemplated moving on to Plymouth and holing up there whilst it was blowy but a touch of the sloth took over (coupled with "Dartmouth is such a nice place" syndrome) and so we decided to ride it out here.

A huge trip followed - from the mid river pontoon to the refuse pontoon (where there is a water tap) and back - just a little heavier after a fresh water top up. We hid up on the easterly side of the pontoon so we were blown off rather than onto it by the promised force 9 severe gales.

Here is the picture showing the nice windy stuff (the red colours) heading over:




We simply doubled up on a few mooring lines, removed the bimini cover to save it from a pasting and then hunkered down. Not too much of a hardship. It was blowy though.

A couple of updates though - we discovered that the weekend M&S staff are far friendlier and more "M&S like" than the weekday ones we encountered before. We also learned that the naval college has some tough entrance assessments conducted over a three day period which 65% of the applicants fail. This poses the question - were standards lower in times gone by or is Colin / Coleen quite an impressive person? We feel unable / unwilling to answer this publicly.

Secondly, what do you do during wet and windy days? Well, some maintenance "tinkering" and whilst doing this, we discovered a wonderful gadget in the ASAP Supplies catalogue. We use them a lot for Racor filters and general bits and bobs - good service. However, their description of this windscreen wiper is, perhaps, a little over-done. Worth zooming in to read it in all its full glory:



We worry about both the marketing folks who wrote it and the people who need that description to help them figure out if it will offer that intermittent wipe function that they have always hankered for on their boat. 

The gales look like they are going to calm down tomorrow so better do some trip planning.....

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Thanks for your ideas / cheek / corrections / whatever! They should hit the blog shortly after the system checks them to make sure they will not put us or you in jail.....