First Night On Board

Actually, Sunday September 29th

After all the haggling, we're finally owners of a Contessa 32 that's currently called Tip-sea, though we'd like to change that to Levante later on. She's at Southampton and we're going to take her to Hayling Yacht Co for a five month restoration to her former glory, together with a few mod cons added for comfort.  

The Contessa has had a fantastic reputation as a cruiser/racer ever since surviving the '79 Fastnet and doubling Cape Horn; with such beautiful lines they are a much sought after classic. It's such an iconic design, typical of the 1970's, uninfluenced by the desire nowadays for so much more internal space which is great in a marina but often a real compromise against seaworthiness and sailing performance.

 We've always had a soft spot for a 32 ever since doing a coastal skipper course on one in the early 80's; now we only need a smaller yacht so Lynda & I decided it was time to have one. Having looked at several we concluded that we were unlikely to find exactly what we wanted so selected on that we could restore. The survey showed that this example was generally sound but had osmosis, fortunately the price ended up being right for us to go ahead; we've now got a clean, basic boat to re-build as we want to. It's a "clean sheet" for us to create exactly what we want to meet our needs over the next ten years or more.


She's berthed at Southampton in the little marina run by the Port authority opposite the Red Funnel jetty. I didn't even know that it existed but it's a great little place with excellent facilities and ideally situated for restaurants and pubs, not to mention the shops. It's all very friendly and makes a good place for our first night on board; we'll certainly be back sometime in the future

The immediate challenge is to sail her over to Chichester harbour which may not be far but the weather refused to co-operate. Although we've got the best part of a week for the trip before the tide drops too low to get into HYC we're not going to be able to hang around, we'll have to take advantage of what ever weather windows open up. That might be just as well as the insurance company have insisted on disconnecting the gas as it's not in a vented locker, which means no hot drinks, let alone meals!

It's uneasy being on a yacht that you're not sure of, we've checked most things out and they seem to be ok for the trip but there's no certainty it's all going to work, much of the equipment is a bit on the fragile side! Being cautious, we've bought a new hand held VHF and signed up for sea-start just in case things start to go wrong...