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

Saturday, 31 May 2025

Lymington to Portland rather early in the morning and in the fog

We had rather a good time in Lymington, as usual. Tina came over on the ferry and stayed overnight with us - mainly to see Izzy of course. We did some food shopping, went to the Monkey Brewhouse for an excellent evening with Ray and Sara who live in staggering distance from it and forced ourselves to a Marshfield farm ice-cream. 

Meanwhile, Paul the tekkie had been in touch with the USA Zeus folks about the strange comms issue and we implemented a good workaround - using a simple cable that luckily had been pulled through the boat to allow the Zeus box to see the battery voltage even if the comms link dropped. We think they have a software bug to fix.

Our planned trip to Portland was in excellent calmish weather. the tides were a little uncooperative though, forcing an early departure well before it was light. The FLIR was invaluable once again. Izzy was suitably confused when her morning pee trip was at 3am in the dark.

Our timing for tidal help was good. Heading between the forts we hit 11.7 knots over the ground for a speed through the water of 6.4. Rather nice. We only managed to capture 11.6 in our photos though:



The route is simple enough, down the side of the Isle of Wight, then a nice inshore trip which was possible as there was no firing at the Lulworth range:



and you can see the silly departure time and how long it took with lots of nice tidal help:



The only drawback was the fog. As soon as we passed the Needles at the end of the Isle of Wight, it was thick fog. The forecast said patches - this was one huge patch that lasted all the way so no pictures to share, sorry. We were glued to the radar, all the way to the marina in Portland. You could only make out the entrance through the huge breakwater of the harbour when we were around 30 metres away. It was tiring.

Typically, that afternoon the fog cleared and the sun came out, as did another Nordhavn. Chubby, a Swiss flagged 55 came and moored astern of us, From this angle, we don't look quite as eclipsed as we did in reality:


If only it had been weather like that for the trip over.

The good news was that the boat behaved perfectly as did the furry crewmember. The staff in Portland were great, telling us we could stay as long as we wanted and that a visitor from Penarth was very rare (this is a sister marina so freebie berthing for us). What was not to like?



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1 comment:

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.....

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