The Start of the Journey

Over the past 2 - 3 years I have had a growing ambition to return to sailing, something I did when much younger. As part of a long term plan to enjoy a less stressful life my better half and I are also keen to have a small but comfortable second property somewhere by the sea within a couple of hours or so of our current home near Potters Bar, just north of London. The trouble is neither of us knows where that might be, so I hatched a cunning plan to acquire a trailer sailer to allow us to travel round and 'try before you buy'. Therefore by the time we are ready to begin our winding down process we should have an idea where we want to base ourselves during the warmer months to spend time on the water.

Like many a deluded dreamer I have spent countless hours / days / weeks trawling through boat sales sites, ebay and a variety of egroup sites looking for the ideal choice. I have looked at a few boats including a lovely 20' clinker built centreboarder that was very tempting but would really be better left in the water once she had taken up. 

So the choice was basically down to GRP or ply / epoxy as the chances are that the boat will spend a considerable amount of time (at least initially) on dry land. I have to say that I love the look and feel of wood and with modern construction techniques and materials I suspect that a well built ply boat will require no more looking after than a plastic one but at my budget wooden boats are generally too far gone.

The other consideration, emphasised by sage advice from the SmallSailBoatClub egroup, was how simple and quick would the boat be to launch and recover if she is only going to be sailed for a day or two at a time. Considering I wanted something with a 'lid' so that occasionally I could spend a night aboard that rather limited the choices available.

Then almost by chance I was offered a Type D West Wight Potter that had seen much better days and had spent some of its life stuck in a field. Had I seen anything larger in this state I would have run a mile but these little boats can be put into a standard garage or could sit on my drive as well as a car and I should have the time and skills to put her back into serviceable nick.

So this is the start of the journey. I collect the boat next week from Poole with the short term ambition of putting her (safely) back in the water with the minimum of time, cost and effort. Longer term I aim to return her to her previous glories through the judicious use of epoxy filler and paint as well as new sails. I'll try to keep a photo log of the process to help others or just to provide a little entertainment, no doubt at my expense.

Enjoy the ride!

To follow the adventures of one far more experienced than me who has resurrected a Type C Potter see bills-log.blogspot.com/. There are lots or great pictures and stories there.