Month: May 2018

So we found a boat that matched some of what we were looking for, over 38ft still floating and cheap. Winner!

Best we have a look at it and see what sort of a project lays ahead should we go ahead and buy it.

Roadtrip!!

First impressions

The previous owner Geoff (nice guy) paddled me out while Tonia waited on shore with instructions to come back and get her if it was any good.

And there it was, been sitting on the same mooring for 4 or 5 years unvisited until the day before when Geoff thought he should wash the bird crap off the deck before we came aboard to inspect it.

So……..

It was BAD, crap everywhere mixed with the engine parts that had not been put back together since the engine was rebuilt, rubbish, sails, and more mold than an English castle. But underneath all that was some good bones and floating there for 4 years without a bilge pump things were looking OK.

So I sent Geoff back to paddle Tonia out, and waited with anticipation to gauge her response, which was “this is not so bad”.

On the way home Tonia and I discussed what sort of a project we had just seen and as neither of us are afraid of hard work and a decent project it took only half an hour an we rang Geoff and told him we would take it.

Shit we have a yacht………..

Where to start?

Some years ago during a trip to Tasmania on our motorcycle, I had too many beers and decided I would like to sail round Australia one day!

Tonia’s response was something like “that’s nice darling” and immediately went back to level 2 bazillion in candy crush.

Well that wasn’t a no!

Anyway that started nearly 3 years of research and looking at boats for sale, yes there are a lot of boats for sale. It probably took an hour to decide that “pretty” boats would never be in my budget and that cheap boats were cheap for a very good reasons.

So at a car rally at Lakes Entrance I ran into a good friend of mine Andrew, and Andrew sells boats.  He sells catamarans and they cost more than pretty boats.

The conversation went something like this:

Greg: Andrew I am looking for a monohull

Andrew: I don’t sell mono’s

Greg: That’s great!  Plenty of people with monohulls upgrade to cat’s, next time you get someone wanting to trade one in tell them it’s worth nothing but you know a guy that might take it off their hands.

Andrew: Haha, oh hang on a minute I might know of a boat for you……

So that’s how we found Ocean Piper.

Captain Greg