Yacht Aditi

A new dream, a new destination

Not quite the sailor’s dream but here we are with the underside cleaned, anti-fouled, polished and coated in lanolin ready for immersion…in the English Channel…in January! We always have to admire the sheer brilliance of Trilux 33 in red; what a fantastic and vibrant colour it is. Almost a shame to drop it in the grey murk of the river. With insufficient time allowed to check things thoroughly we launched into an oncoming SW gale and 35kn headwind. Having sat still for over a year a few contact switches were initially unsure that they wanted to participate in the new

Outboard meets custom bike…and likes it!

What can you do when your outboard meets with the custom bike world and starts calling for a make-over? The outboard cover has been through a few different guises. It first arrived in it’s plain old factory silver, then we took it to a graduated purple pink with the name Aditi on the side before going incognito for security reasons ahead of arriving in the Caribbean. The old 1-pack epoxy paints and clear coat cracked up over an 18 month period so we are now morphing to a new design using professional auto paints. Having sanded and filled and sanded and

Going Loco in Las Palmas

Well after midnight and here we find ourselves at the ARC Welcome Party having discovered the photo booth. We are with Wendy and Gerry (Duplicat), Alison (Monster Project) and Sofie (Catara). Can you tell that we are having a brilliant time together? There is something very special about getting together with other people before crossing the ocean. The excitement of the ARC is not to be under-estimated.  

Atlantic – What did we learn?

Let’s break this down into several key areas: Preparations The Ocean The ARC The Boat Geographical Issues People Changes we would make etc We have been sailing for years but prior to our journey ‘the ocean’ was a complete unknown. We therefore left the UK and headed out ‘beyond the Isle of Wight’ into unfamiliar waters. With regard to sailing and after approaching 10,000nm of coastal cruising we still felt like beginners. Now, having added a further 9,000nm to our log including roughly 8,000nm of ocean passage making we are stepping up our status in the sailing world to that

All Dreams Come to an End

And so it is time to say goodbye to life on the water. We have lived on Aditi every single night for 15 months and it has been an amazing experience. Don’t get me wrong; we are not thrilled to be hauling out today and we would rather be heading the other way. But the boat needs a bit of ‘land’ time and as the hull emerges and you see the level of fouling you know that this is the right thing to do. And so the dream closes in heavy rain, one of the very few occasions where we

The season’s over!

We are one of the last of the 2014 season to be camping out in Yarmouth. Often blowing Force 8 and 9 but mainly dry. A Challenge 67 yacht was pinned to their pontoon and unable to leave the harbour for 24 hours due to the beam on F9 that was blowing. The crew emerged on deck in full foulies for about 3 hours as ropes and fenders were moved. The skipper stared out into the Solent for much of this time but wasn’t able to come up with an exit plan.   Yarmouth         Yarmouth Double

Goodbye to Sascha

Having put his Westerly Longbow 31 up for sale, and after wrenching himself away from his beloved friend that looked after him during two solo transats, Sascha dropped in to say goodbye. We have roughly completed the last 1500nm together. We had a great day out and a last dinner before he left for Gatwick airport. It was great to see him and he very kindly presented us with some treasures from the bilge. We wish him good luck resettling into every day life back in Bavaria.

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