the dream
This is quite the story, so grab yourself your favourite hot drink and buckle in, and join us on the adventure of our lifetime, that was, our crazy boat dream. It all started in March 2020. One day, we were out adventuring around Wales, the next we were shut in Zachs university bedroom, with it being illegal to go outside for any other reason than to food shop or exercise. The exact moment we came up with the dream to get a boat, is a little foggy- from either the stress of the uncertainty in the world, or it just being years ago now, but we do remember snippets. We remember briefly thinking about buying a van, but quickly dismissing it due to the fact you had to fill up the tank continuously to travel, which was neither inexpensive, nor sustainable. We remember scrolling through Apollo Duck or Used Boats and Outboards for hours every day. We remember setting the budget to 60-70k! (We were DEFINITLEY dreaming!) and we remember the feeling of escapism we felt looking at these vessels which are solely designed to be free, using the power of the wind to fuel them around the world. However, with travel restrictions, another year of university to go and no previous experience asides from dingy sailing, this distant wish seemed as far from our reality as possible.
Check out this photo of us from years before we bought Teulu!
We kept searching for our dream vessel for years, living with the stark reality that even if we did find our dream boat, there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. We were on a student budget and unfortunately you cannot pay for a boat in will power or determination! After graduating, Zach got a job with a large e-commerce company and sold his soul to work the 60 hour long night shift weeks that was required. Becka got a job working on a large scale pandemic research study and whilst neither job were that ‘us’, it paid the rent and added to the ‘boat pot’. Looking back, i think we both knew that it would be a huge feat for us to save up to buy our first boat, but whether it was naivety or sheer will, we kept blindly saving. To make the dream feel a bit more tangible, we put up posters around Swansea Marina advertising our willingness to gain experience and help people with their boats, both on and off the water. Just a few days later, our phones rang and we were invited to help a chap called Ian sail his boat from Swansea to Cardiff. We couldn’t believe our luck! We cancelled all our plans and layed out all our sailing gear in preparation for the upcoming weekend. A particularly fond memory from this trip was when Ian announced he was going down below to have a nap and that we were in full control of the boat! After a quick giggle at how surreal the situation was, we quickly nominated one of us for the ‘watcher’ and one of us for the ‘helmsman’- particularly comical as the boat had autopilot and we didn’t pass any other vessels (we would have been ready for it if we had though!). Realistically, there was nothing we could have done too wrong, but we are incredibly grateful to this day for Ian trusting us enough with his boat, and it was that confidence boost which carried us through the dreary winter months in Wales.
Whilst working outside, someone made me a hot drink in this mug!
Wanting a few more qualifications than just our Dingy levels 1-3, we signed up for our Day Skippers- knowing full well we weren’t even close to this level of knowledge, but reassured by the instructor that if we did not feel ready for the exam, the competent crew paper would always be there incase. However, a week later, and hours upon hours of studying later, we passed both the practical and theory exam. Even though it was just a bit of paper, we felt significantly more proficient to have the dream we did. By this point, reality had finally hit and our boat budget had halved. Our search engine selection went for 50 foot to 30 foot! We casually mentioned to a friend that winter that we were thinking about buying a boat and he hopped up and down and told us to buy an old ketch. ‘An old ketch!- that was the furthest from the modern sloops we had been looking at for the last two years!’ we exclaimed. Our dream didn’t look like that, so we shoved that idea to the back of our minds for a while. That was, until (the same friend) sent us the link to the most beautiful Colvic Victor ketch. With teak decks (which we were avoiding like the plague), and about 10 foot bigger than we were looking at- obviously it was love at first sight.
The exciting rescue on our Day Skippers practical
Being familiar with Westerlys, Jeanneau, Beneteau, Bavaria, Moody etc, the name Colvic was a new one for us. However, with a large aft cabin, beautiful pilot house and centre cockpit, it fitted our long term cruising needs to a T. This was the perfect boat for us. However, not even selling many of our belongings on Facebook Marketplace and eBay and scrimping our already tiny, £20 a week food budget, could get her within our budget. We let the idea of ever sailing her go and moved on to looking at smaller boats, full of osmosis again. But, we couldn’t get the idea that this was meant to be our boat out of our minds, and we finally made an offer on her in March 2022. The previous owner tried to push us higher but when we said ‘this is literally everything we have!’, he must have seen the desperation in our eyes and realised we weren’t trying to plug a bargain. At last, our offer was accepted and what initially was disbelief, than joy and excitement, turned quickly into ‘How the heck are we going to figure out the logistics of this!’. But if this process had shown us anything, it was that where there was a will, there was also a way and despite any hurdles that were on the horizon for us, we had bought a boat and were bloody doing it.
A reduced cake and laminated copies of our new boat to celebrate the offer being accepted!
from dream to reality
Here’s a vid we made of the whole process!