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Third yacht - nearly bought!

Home again, it was time to start looking again for that yacht of mine. Searching various agencies, listing my name and requirements with others, I soon picked out a few to short list. A Gib Sea 42 in Turkey, a couple of Beneteau 351 in Greece and Croatia, another Gib Sea 37 and a Bavaria 33, again in Croatia. Enquiries made, the first offer was put on and accepted on the Gib Sea 42. However, on further enquiries, there were problems with the boat so I did not even consider having any survey done. The next was a Beneteau 351, based in Greece.

Nice looking boat, offer made and accepted, deposit put down and a pre-survey carried out. Keel bolt problems and hull cracks so deposit refunded. The others either had VAT to pay on them or were not prepared to reduce the asking price.

Again, another very nice looking boat. A price had been agreed with the seller and a pre-survey was booked. All was going well until the keel bolts were inspected. Unfortunately these were extremely corroded and there was cracking in the bilge box around the bolts. Oh dear. Another one to pass by.

The circumnavigation.

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My journey started in June 2018 when I left Preveza, Greece, in my Bavaria37C, a monohull bound for Gibraltar. I had decided to cross the Atlantic with the ARC and had declared that Gibraltar would be my stepping point in order to prepare the boat for this passage. I had ordered a Hydrovane self steering mechanism to complement my autopilot. I also ordered a water maker as I thought that with four crew on board and only holding 300 litres of water, I would need to make some during the trip. The person I had asked to carry out this work was, let’s say, rather slow, cut corners and, to be honest, never finished the work. An ongoing project between Gibraltar and Cape Verde. From Cape Verde we sailed with the ARC to St. Lucia. The boat was left on the hard in St. Lucia over the winter of 2018 before I sailed her back to Greece in 2019. At that point I knew I wanted to go further but needed to think about the type of boat required to sail round the world. At this point I decided that a catamaran would be the best type of boat for this passage so sold my Bavaria and bought a Lagoon 380 S2. The boat was based in St Martin so it was sailed from there down to Trinidad in May / June 2022. It was left there for quite a bit of work to be carried out before setting off again in January / February 2023. Leaving Trinidad to head through the Panama Canal across the Pacific I left my last crew member in Bora Bora. From there I sailed solo up to Sri Lanka where the boat was left once more over winter. In January 2024 I will return to Sri Lanka to complete the last leg of the circumnavigation, heading up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and back into the Mediterranean. All of the daily blogs have been written and placed on my website.

The legs

Greece to St. Lucia via Gibraltar, Gran Canaria and Cape Verde.

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St Martin to Trinidad.

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Trinidad to Sri Lanka.

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Sri Lanka to Greece.

Change of Boats

In order to complete the circumnavigation I had decided that a 'larger' boat was needed. Not necessarily in length but wider, a catamaran. Also my old boat only had one heads (toilet) and a second was required. So, from a monohull, a Bavaria 37 Cruiser a Lagoon 380 S2 was bought.

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