Little Big Adventures

At anchor in Beauport Bay, Jersey. 

In this post I'll be telling some more about me, my boyfriend, our little sailboat and the big adventures we had with her.

It all started some nine years ago, when me and my boyfriend Ivo decided we wanted to explore the world on a sailing boat. We were students at that time, with no boat, no money and no prior sailing experience. So that dream seemed miles away... 

But we knew that if we were to realize that dream someday, we had to start working on our sailing experience right now. So we spent the little money we had on sailing lessons. We chartered small boats with friends and sailed on sheltered lakes. When our confidence and experience grew, we moved to bigger lakes.

We chartered small sailing boats to get experience

We started thinking about buying our own boat. We knew that finding one wasn’t going to be easy. We wanted her to be seaworthy and capable of extended trips. But because of our limited budget, we had to look for a boat that was cheap. Often, those two don't mix very well! But we got lucky. We received a golden tip from an Internet message board. The local student sailing association was selling their two small sea cruisers.

These little double-ended boats were quite unique. Lichtekooi made a heroic trip from the Netherlands to the Azores, without an engine! These boats were specially designed for the student sailing club, by the university's president. He was a professor in mechanical engineering and an avid boat designer. The boats were designed with sea trips in mind. The club, the people that would sail them, built these boats themselves. So there was no problem in convincing us that these boats were seaworthy.

Our local sailing club was selling its two sea cruisers

But at the same time, they were very reasonably priced, because they were small (22-foot) and they both had no engine. We went sailing with the sailing club and they were real masters of engineless boat control. We however, were less convinced of our own engineless sailing skills, so when we bought Doordraijer, we fitted her with an outboard.

 

Doordraijer

Now we had our own boat, we practiced even more. We made our first real sea trip. And we started thinking about possibilities for an extended trip. In 2013, we got an opportunity to leave for three months.

We weren’t very experienced. We would only sail in fair weather conditions and we would only make day trips. So we knew we wouldn’t be fast. The Channel Islands seemed like a reasonable destination. They have palm trees there. So for us, it was already quite exotic! 

 

Palm trees!

We had a beautiful ten-week trip to the Channel Islands. We learned so much about sailing there. When we got back, we had a taste for more. But we realized that, in order to get anywhere interesting, we needed to be able to make multi-day crossings. So that was our next goal.

In 2015, we signed up for the Small Ships Race. This is a friendly race, for pocket cruisers only. Together, you sail from IJmuiden (near Amsterdam) to Lowestoft (the east of England). For small mono-hulls, this crossing takes about twenty-four hours. An ideal chance to get some experience in night sailing and keeping watches, with the safety of sailing in an organized group. We promised ourselves that if we would do well on this first crossing, we would make another multi-day-hop to the North of England.

 Our first crossing, with a group of small cruisers 

The first crossing went very well, so after a few days in Lowestoft, we took to sea again. Our destination was Whitby, North Yorkshire. It took us almost three days. When you have a tiny outboard and there is no wind, the only option you have is patience. But it all went very well. We felt like true explorers when we arrived in Whitby. We did the way back (from Whitby to our home berth in Lemmer, passing several locks) in one single leg. We were getting used to this!

After our first crossing, we sailed from Lowestoft to Whitby

Now that we could sail straight on for multiple days, cool destinations came within the reach of a three to four-week vacation. We dreamed of Norway, Scotland, Cornwall, the Scillies. But again, we needed to be patient. We found some serious wood rot in the cockpit of our boat. This year, half the sailing season (and most of our vacation time) has gone into fixing that. We're also installing more on-board battery power and we’re thinking of getting an AIS transceiver.

We are now in a finishing stage (more or less). But we haven't got much vacation time left. So this year, we won’t be going very far. But for next year, we do have cool plans. We hope to head for Norway. As you will understand, I am looking forward to that!

I'll keep you guys posted...