Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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I woke up to fierce winds and a lot of rain. Impossible to apply primer in those conditions. Got to the boat to fix all the internal mechanicals, and there was a respite, so I managed to get the first coat of (thinned down) primer applied. Then is pissed down again, luckily the paint was touch dry by then, so all good. Need to leave this coat for as long as possible before second coat, so hoping for better weather later. Tomorrow morning, 2 coats of anti foul, and then back in the water.......
Mechanicals all fixed and secure (and working)....

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I am, because I fly to Morocco first thing Friday, so tomorrow is a sort of hard deadline.
But, on a positive note....I now understand a lot more about the boat, the hull construction, the steering mech etc, so in a masochistic sort of way, this cloud had a silver lining....
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@Giles said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
And she floats...
nice, always a hand's breadth of water under the keel (as we say in german)

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was that the one we went past after lunch and had to be careful of the depth of water?
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@Giles This does sound amazing......
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About a year ago, Paula and started to discuss life after SAKURA. Unless we buy second hand, anything that we would want, would be a 1-3 year delivery. We think that by then, we'll want something a little smaller, with just 2 cabins (we have 3 on SAKURA) and possible an outside helm as well as an inside one.
In September, I happened across a tiny little boat builder on Wales, who make the most sublime boats I have ever seen, functional, fast, seaworthiness off the scale etc etc. We went to see them and do a sea trial.
This the one we trialled (not me at the helm
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It was gobsmackingly accomplished in seas that I thought the trial would have to be called off for. We got very excited, started speccing one for delivery in late 2027 (they make just one or two in total across all models) per year. The following morning we woke up and reality had kicked in, we simply could not afford one. Bugger.
On Tuesday, I was contacted by Dale. The very one we had trialled was coming onto the market (owner moving to Australia), and Paula and I were the first people to be approached. It was launched in February and has 90 hours on the engines. It's basically new. It is massively specced, and we were offered it for 40% off list.
Initiate cat-amongst-the pigeons mode. I met with the Sasga rep on SAKURA this morning, and he believes we can net ($'s) what we need, to buy the Dale.
So basically it's a stonkingly good deal, we think we can afford it, but we may run out of time waiting to get an offer on SAKURA.
Initiate what-will-happen-will-happen mode.
It's a wait and see.
For those of you who would like to see more, click below....
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keep my fingers crossed!
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@Giles I love watching that channel .good luck with the yacht.





