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Raymarine For over four years Richard worked in the QA department of Raymarine in Portsmouth. During this time he worked at the forefront of the industry, testing and fettling new products and software before their release to market. Wild Bird has benefited by becoming a test bed in her own right. |
LifestyleWe're not out to break any records or win any medals. We all love the lifestyle - and who wouldn't?! As far as passage making goes, we feel it'd be unpleasant for Libby to take her offshore for long periods, and Penny is not keen on long passages anyway. |
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Repairs Richard is well placed to assist other yachties in fault trace, location and fixing. A Master Mariner who was originally in the communications industry, qualified in telecomms and electronics, Richard enjoys solving problems on board vessels of all types. As well as commanding vessels all over the world, he has also served as temporary engineer on a very prestigious sailing yacht. |
Website As you can see, I've completely re-vamped the site with a brand new "top" or index page. I'm trying to get to grips with Dreamweaver 8. It's still guesswork, and I'm still having to use "Notepad" and and WS_FTP to fiddle the files so they display properly. I'm planning to simply use "Word" for the monthly diary pages, but if anyone's got better ideas, I'd love to hear them. |
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Wild Bird Wonderings
Penny and I met in Croatia in 2001. She was managing a large charter-yacht base and I was First Officer on a large prestigious private motor yacht. Over a glass of wine, we dreamed about one day buying a yacht of our own and living the life without deference to owners or charterers. In the intervening years we ran large yachts in the Med and Australasia, got married, bought and renovated an old house, had a daughter - but all the time saving every spare penny until the day in October 2009 when we finally bought our own fine vessel, "Wild Bird".
January 2012 Snorkelling!
We've all been snorkelling a lot this month. There have been turtles a plenty, a nurse shark, lobsters - though as yet they've managed to evade capture - families of squid, a lion fish, rays, as well as all the usual colourful reef fish and coral. Libby now has an upgraded mask, snorkel and fins, and so does Snowcup!
The January page is now updated with our thoughts and doings.....
Decisions now need to be made about the medium future. Return to Europe in Spring? Cruise as long as possible then ship home? Current thinking revolves around going down island say from mid February and eventually sailing for home in July.
OUR ***NEW*** LOCAL PHONE NUMBER: +1 340 244 6183 - Current for US Virgin Islands; +1 284 343 4394 for British Virgin Islands. If you'd like to call, please try one or the other. If one number fails to ring, please don't leave voice mail, just try the other number, thanks.
(You can follow our progress on this site: www.marinetraffic.com/ais. )
Trintella 44 Ketch For Sale ... £89,000
Yacht "Wild Bird", our fine ship is technically for sale. Our adventures aboard are expected to come to an end in September 2012. The bank will want their money back, and unless we were to win the lottery we couldn't afford to keep her permanently. Regular readers will know that our immediate plans are to ship to the Caribbean for winter 2011/12, and see how far we get towards the USA. Maybe the Carolinas. At any rate, the plan is for the girls to fly home in August 2012, and for Rich plus a crew to bring the "Bird" home to Portsmouth.
Anyone interested in a well found, blue-water family cruising yacht should look no further! We have a virtually new Perkins main engine, (2008), refurbished, recaulked and screwed decks 2011, new mizzen sail, (2010) new mainsail (2008), rebuilt roller furling genoa with new UV strip, (2011) top of the range Raymarine navigation suite - essentially all the kit needed to set off over the horizon.
We absolutely LOVE the boat, and there's never been any doubt that we bought exactly the right vessel for our 3 year sabbatical. She was built at the world renowned "Anne Weaver" yard in Holland in 1980. She is very strong and very sea kindly. She eats up the miles in safety and comfort and is very easily handled by two. There are several enhancements to original spec - most obviously the electronics and inverter and machinery etc, but notably in addition - the bed in the master suite has been widened, as has the top bunk bed. Also sail handling has been enhanced with "stack packs", lazy jacks and roller furling.
As time goes by I shall refine and fill in the gaps in the specs, but do feel free to get in touch if you're planning YOUR dream voyage to start late 2012 / 13. Whilst for convenience and other factors, such as the sheer joy of sailing into home waters from afar, I expect to berth Wild Bird in the Solent, southern England on our return. However, if a serious buyer would wish to proceed early, then handover would be feasible in the USA, Caribbean or Europe.