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A summary of 2020’s adventures
Hello! And welcome to our blog – we will be using this to record our adventures over the coming years on the good ship Ægle
So, a bit of history to start with … Rob and I bought our first boat together (with Shay) back in 2012. A J80 – Jumblesail (thanks to Dad for the name!) – we raced her extensively including at the Worlds in Dartmouth in 2012, the Worlds in Marseille in 2013 and the Worlds in Kiel in 2015. Back at home we sailed Easter regattas, spring series, Cowes weeks, winter series, JCups and oh so much more. Our second boat – Jumblesail2 – a J97 (which we owned jointly with Rob’s dad David) introduced us to double handed racing … we had a ball and learned a lot! We also met some great people including the crew of Nightjar … a very competitive J92 (we later joined their crew when we sold Jumblesail2) … but more on them later! But the time came when we started thinking about bigger, grander plans … round the world cruising … a J97 just wasn’t going to cut it … the hunt for our third boat commenced …
We had a VERY long list of possible boats, my dad suggested more, we looked at a few (both online and in real life), we drew up a list of ‘must haves’, we visited BOOT in Düsseldorf and saw more boats … one of those we had seen online was a Bestevaer 53 – Ægle – built by KM Yachting in Makkum in the Netherlands … we had talked to them at BOOT in February 2020 but the boat wasn’t there … we thought nothing more until mid the chaos of 2020 and various lockdowns when we took the opportunity of a break in the madness to set off cruising to the West Country in Jumblesail2 and realised that Ægle was based in Fowey …
… so it was time for a call to KM Yachting …
“Can we see her please?”
“She’s in the Azores!”
“Ah! That’s a lot less convenient than Fowey”
“But she’s passing through the Solent later this year on her way to Makkum …”
And so that was it, a date was made … Robin P was kind enough to drive us across to the Beaulieu River in his rib for a viewing J, and, long story short, we loved her … she’s different (VERY) … “not beautiful but striking” said my Dad who’s very pretty gaff rigger was based on the Beaulieu at the time … we were smitten! Offers went in, test sails and surveys were arranged, and she was ours!
Somehow we managed – around various lockdowns (formal invites were required) – a trip to Makkum for the survey, and then to complete on and collect our prized new family member! We had to be back in the UK before Brexit otherwise a hefty VAT bill could ensue! A late November North Sea crossing beckoned – nice!
We navigated our way out of the Dutch inland waters – anyone who has sailed there will know how shallow it is and how testing the locks can be! With more logistical challenges and formal invites Mills joined us in Den Helder for the trip back … OMG there are a LOT more wind farms in the North Sea than there used to be … and they are lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree … quite disconcerting! We left on the back of a gale just as the wind and (pretty rough) sea state were dropping off … a bouncy few hours ensued … but by the time we reached the UK east coast the wind had disappeared and we feasted on bacon and egg sandwiches on a flat calm sea!
Off Dungeness we tried to refill our day tank (which holds about 70 litres of diesel) … not a squeak from the fuel pump … hmmm, a problem … so we hand pumped 70 litres across while drifting in flat calm conditions … the random ‘stop’ may have looked a bit suspicious, particularly given the number of migrant boats trying to cross the Channel at that time … cue a visit from four black clad Border force gentlemen in a large (and very fast) black rib … all very civilised and we were on our way in no time!
Cowes beckoned … we had recently relocated ourselves out of London and down to Cowes which turned out to be perfect timing … we arrived at Shepards marina (350NM under our collective belts already!) and shuttled straight up to the house to ‘re-join’ the lockdown … Mills having bubbled with us previously (and being an excellent house mate with her house elf tendencies!) we all quickly settled in to wait for the next release date! Having declared our arrival through the formal channels we did also have a visit from the police to confirm we were isolating as we should! We were!
Isolation complete Mills headed back home to Barnes once the rules allowed only to find the world shutting down again just before Christmas and – as for all of us – her Christmas plans in tatters … she hurled a number of things (although slightly amusingly not her Christmas presents!) into the car as various parts of the country announced the imminent changing of tiers and hurtled down the M3 as I booked her a ticket on the Red Funnel … while Christmas wasn’t what any of us planned we had the most fantastic sail on Christmas Day (sailing was allowed as exercise!) in glorious sunshine and then a second sail (with the kite up) on New Years Eve (again more sunshine) … a fantastic ending to 2020!
