First Weekend on Our New Sailboat | We Survived!!!

Boy oh boy was that an epic few days! Not long ago, we signed some papers and were officially the new owners of a Fraser 41 sailboat. And we love her!

But now what??? She is ours…….. but she is also 1000km away and we have to stay here and keep working for another few weeks…

We thought we ought to pay her a visit. Go and introduce ourselves properly and get acquainted with our new home. Hopefully she is going to take care of us as we explore the blue yonder.

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We are only visiting for a couple of days… should be easy right??!

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Anyone would have thought we were going on holiday for a month looking at the amount of stuff we had! With our bags packed completely full of supplies, two excited but nervous scallywags started their journey down the coast.

As we drove out of Sydney on our way to Pittwater, the butterflies started to set in. We really had no idea what to expect. We knew our boat had been moved to a more protected bay, but that was it.

I guess as long as she was still floating that would be a good start!

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Our boat turned out to be a good 15 minute dinghy ride from the brokerage (which thank goodness they were kind enough to take us to!). We both breathed a huge sigh of relief when we saw her bobbing away surrounded by other yachts.

We stood there like a couple of stunned mullets in disbelief that she was now OUR responsibility!

Thankfully, she looked exactly as we remembered and once we got over the shock we were super stoked to be on board.

Since we were stuck in the middle of this bay with no food or water, our first job was to bring the dinghy back to life and get it into the water. Inflation was easy and through some dodgy knots and manoeuvring we managed to get him/her (haven’t decided yet..) over the side and into the water! HOORAY!

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Despite our achievements, we were soon to find out that we were stranded again because the outboard did not have a fuel tank! Even though the Captain has superb rowing skills, it was much too far to test his abilities against the strong winds. And thus, we came across the first of many boat errands!

After a quick call for help to our broker, he came to our rescue (and even gave us a fuel tank!) so we could go and find a suitable fuel line as well as food and water for the weekend.

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By late afternoon we had a working outboard (with only a little smoke), were stocked up with supplies for the rest of our stay and were only a little bit exhausted from the events of day 1!

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Over the couple of days we spent most of our time cleaning and just having a good look around the boat. We cleaned the interior, gave the engine a run, cleaned the bilge, topped up the batteries, cleaned the decks and tried to map out the electrics and plumbing.

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Sleeping was amazing in the V berth as the breeze funnelled straight through the top hatch making it so nice and cool.

It is also the perfect hatch to check the sunrise from.

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Every morning we would visit the local coffee spot and store before delving into the jobs for the day. We took showers off the back of the boat as we want to drain and treat all the tanks before using the water on board. Luckily the cool ocean water was a nice reprieve from the Sydney summer heat!

Life seems pretty good sitting on the back of your sailboat with a bucket for a shower

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We were only visiting over a weekend so weren’t really there to delve into too much work. We mainly wanted to make sure everything was packed up properly and secured.

Luckily the only two surprise problems we encountered were:

Minor (hopefully) gas leak which did mean we were a little apprehensive to use the system too much. This lead to a heavy consumption of hot cross buns.

Steering had stopped working which we only noticed by chance. Would have been a different story if we had dropped the mooring and tried to sail somewhere. Hopefully an easy fix from a leak in the hydraulic system.

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Our last night was by far the best. We pulled the cockpit cushions up to the front deck and lay there in the breeze watching the full moon.

We have already had a taste of the ups and downs that come with the lifestyle.

So far it all seems totally worth it and we haven’t even started sailing yet!!

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We are counting down the days until we move for good and it isn’t too far away now!

Until next time.

Xx