Progress is being made!

Listen carefully – I have a tiger in my tank! You turn the key and it purrs …..

Something’s afoot!

This saga started last Wednesday with a simple operation to tow the engineless Goodwill to the scubbing dock (200 yards away) to lift shiny new engine in….. 3 days later I tied up there at 3am! I wont bore you with the details of this little sortie, but needless to say we provided a free entertainment show to those sensible people who believe on staying on terra firma! Safely tied to the shore I retired back to my bed… within hours the wind had seen the opportunity to have fun and gale force 8’s came ouit to play and that put pay to any meaningful relationship I was going to have with my bed for the next 2 days!





Yesterday we moved the shiny new engine to the cockpit (using the boom as a crane gib). i have photos but currently the phone and computer are refusing to talk to each other. Warm and dry the engine and me settled down for the night….. 4am and it and I were soaked after the side of the cockpit tent was ripped off in the gales. Unfortunately I had forgotten to connect back the cockpit drains so…. 6 gallons of rain just emplied from the bilges!!

After much admiration the new engine took up residence in the engine bay. Bless its cotton socks it did not give us further grief until I spent £60 just on the liquids to keep it happy – wine is much cheaper! I am still drying the bilges, the wind is screaming the rain is chucking it down, but hey I got a shiney new engine !

We may have a new engine….

We have just liberated a large ply box from Colin’s workshop that claims to contain the new engine! Too scared to look! True to form the new engine has no intention of sitting nicely on the old mounts so the task of building new engine bearers has commenced. Resin and hot weather is not a good mix! Needless to say the car got jealous of all the attention being directed at her arch enemy and declined to remind me her MOT and insurance were about to expire – Hey Ho!!

Was this a good idea?

The first requirement of a boat going ‘deep sea’ is that it has a reliable means of propulsion for when the wind is is on the nose and the pub is in the same direction or the wind dies and leaves you going nowhere very fast. So the obvious place to start the preparation for this 1000 miles of craziness is to … yes - remove the engine! There is a rumour she will shortly have a shiny new engine though where 29 horses are going to go …The engine bay is spotless. I have a new permanent perfume-a gentle blend of diesel, oil and kerosine! Watch this space, it could turn into a saga!

Once upon a time

7 years ago I was having another midlife crisis in the company of my daughter Helen and a couple of bottles of wine. Several hours later I had somehow taken a decision to live afloat. My daughter did nothing to stop my craziness except pour another drink! I phoned my other daughter, Becky thinking I would get a sensible answer – Wrong! My Mum would perhaps bring her wayward daughter to her senses – not a hope there either. My life was about to change. On the 21st December 2001 I became a ‘liveaboard’ and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Vital statistics of Goodwill:

Length overall 9 metres

Beam 3.0 metres (Like many girls of her age she has middle age spread)

Bilge keel yacht (2 hangy down bits)

She carries normal white sails (watch this blog) and flies a purple and white cruising chute in light airs.

She weighs in at 5 tons

Engine Yanmar 29 hp

Sailathon – 21st June 2008!

On June 21st 2008 Goodwill will be setting forth on a sponsored sail from her home Marina in the River Medway to Edinburgh and back again! All money raised will be going to Leukaemia CARE.

A quick overview for you:

Here’s a link to our journey (this will open a PowerPoint presentation).

Please dig deep and sponsor me using this link or the image below!

I’m going to be updating this blog as I prepare for my departure and on route so you can read the highs the lows and downright daft expedition moments from us and our fellow boats. Bookmark this page and check back for regular updates – or set up an RSS feed!