Hi to everyone, found this forum bu Googling, very informative, interesting, friendly and encouraging site.
I took up boating 37 years ago, initially with power boats and then after being introduced to the addictive art of sailing about 3 years later have mostly been sailing since. I say mostly because there was a period there that I never wanted to see another yacht again.
At first I liked the idea of sailing over power because it suddenly gave me (us, the wife included) to sail beyond the range of a tank of fuel. We purchased an exotic quarter tonner to learn in and did well on the racing scene. I then purchased a 36' hull and deck from a boat builder, fitted it out, rigged it as a ketch and started our learning curvee for offshore sailing. This was done from our home in Melbourne (Aust) zig zagging up and down Bass Strait and eventually circumnavigating Tasmania. All roaring forty stuff.
With a little experience under our keel we now were game to dream of bigger things, sold the ketch and had a 39' Challenger built for us. Off we went to sail the world, the boat proved to be an exceptional sea boat but there was a few issues with the build and equipment, this eventually led me to lose confidence in the boat and our ability to cope, after struggling for 2 years along the Australian coast I just wanted to go home, my wife, encouraged me to keep going, this lasted another year with me being taken ashore with an anxiety attack. Hence we went home leaving our yacht in storage for one year so that I could recover. After the one year was up we returned to have another go, I lasted 3 days before waking up at 2am in the morning having nightmares at anchor, we turned back and sold the boat.
Returned to power boating locally for 12 years eventually getting tired of noisey diesels and limited cruising. Went boatless for 7 months but could not resist the call of the sea.
Purchased another yacht and hired a delivery skipper to deliver it from Sydney to Hobart, he managed to sink it on the way, maybe someone up there is trying to send us a message?
Being stubborn and boatless, we purchased another yacht in Sydney, decided if anyone was going to sink this one it might as well be us, so we flew up to Sydney and sailed it home to Hobart by ourselves. The boats name was appropriately called "Get-a-Life" we have not changed it.
Have now owned it for 12 months and the dreams are slowly returning, wether they will eventuate we can only wait and see. But it is reading forums like this that will make it possible.
Thank you everyone for rekindling the dream.
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