How did it happen that two landlubber computer programmers, on contract in the far corners of the world, decided to exchange their perfectly good if somewhat hectic lifestyles for the uncertainties and trials of bluewater cruising?

This is the tale of the how. The why you can figure out for yourselves.

The first time we took her out, we just motored around Pittwater, huge grins splitting our faces from ear to ear. We own a yacht! We own a yacht!

After a while, once we'd done a few doughnuts and got the feel of her, we unfurled the foresail and pottered along with the motor off. We're sailing! We're sailing!

It was exhilarating, wonderful, a dream come true. And, it must be said, somewhat scary; not the act of sailing particularly, but the fact that we were floating around on our life savings. Then, rounding a headland into the jaws of the open sea, everything suddenly went all topsy turvy because we were only pottering along under the headsail and didn't have the headway to handle several metres of swell. We concentrated very, very hard to beat our way back around the headland, but came through unscathed, only a little shaken, and if truth be told, very pleased with ourselves.

So... we bought a second-hand Zodiac inflatable tender from Ebay; unbreakable crockery, cutlery, cookware, breakable glasses (never drink wine from plastic!) and bedding from the local shops. We bought a fire-blanket, man-overboard ring, dolphin light. We bought buckets and brushes and polyrope and string, batteries and tools. We bought life-jackets, cleaning equipment, boat-soap, a chart.

As weekends of sailing went by, we started to think about maintenance; we bought deck oil and gelcoat restorer, metal polish, a small passive dehumidifier. There seemed to be no end to the things that we needed to, or could, or felt like buying. A trip to the local chandlery to buy a split-pin would, likely as not, result in a triumphant exit with armfuls of shiny new equipment.

We had been told to expect to spend 10% of the purchase price per year on maintenance and upkeep; surely this could not be true? We started to keep records.

We were living in Canberra at the time, a landlocked city in a landlocked state and, since we found it quite inconvenient to have the boat moored some four and a half hours away, we moved to Sydney.

We were starting new jobs and were still househunting, so the obvious thing to do was to liveaboard. This we did for quite some time, and thoroughly enjoyed it, although it did become clear after a while that the yachty lifestyle and the office lifestyle don't really coincide.

Each morning, we got up, climbed into the tender and rowed ashore with all our office and motorcycle gear in waterproof bags. Then we showered and changed at the marina and rode to work; reverse in the evening.

This was all fine and lovely on a peaceful warm day (although rowing home on a sultry evening wearing motorcycle armour over business attire is a sweaty exercise), but got to be tricky when there was a storm blowing. On one occasion, a hailstorm hit half way out and we had to take shelter on the closest moored yacht as chunks the size of golf balls rained on our heads and metre-high waves filled the Zodiac.

The Virtual Reinhard Archive

Pseudemys

21.09.06 Front Page

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