All work and no play

Before we bought Escapade, we carried out lots of research. We read, talked to other people and went on board as many boats as we could. Gradually, we started to make a list (the first of many) of the features of our ideal boat. Eventually, we narrowed our choices down and decided on an Oyster 47.

At the time we were looking, there were several for sale, but Escapade of London was highest on our list. She was in really good condition for a boat of her age and most of her equipment was original. This was a huge positive, as we knew we wanted to replace a lot of it and knowing that most was obsolete/worn out made this an easier decision.

Another list that we had complied was equipment/features we felt we would like to make our journeys easier. Added to this was work identified by the survey….it was a very long list!! We knew that we had a few years, so we put together a work schedule to spread the cost and ensure that the work was carried out in some sort of logical order. We wanted to do as much work ourselves as possible – firstly to cut down costs, but also so we could really understand the way our boat worked.  Some jobs, however, we left to the professionals!

Where did we start? The survey had identified that the boat was very dry, as she had been out of the water for several years. This made it a good time to have the hull shot blasted, re-epoxied and anti-fouled. Obviously, this was a job for Fox’s, although we did manage to do much of the prep work, including removing the old skin fittings. That was my first (but not my last) experience of cleaning old sikaflex off bits of boat!

We also started to understand that every job on a boat takes much, much longer than you were expecting, costs much, much more than you were expecting and generally leads to several other jobs being added to your work list!!

It does make the end result worthwhile though.