Welcome

I spent a few years living in New Zealand ages ago and realised there that I loved sailing and being out on the water. I owned a 3.5metre RIB with a 15hp outboard and a little 26ft trailer sailer, basically a giant Laser. I loved having the RIB to blast out in but loved doing up the little yatch too. Back in the UK boating and boats are a bit of a different story and generally a little harder and more expensive to get into. Plus the weather is generally crap. You basically need a shit tonne of money to have a nice boat here. I do not have a shit tonne of money…

So anyway, I spotted this old boat for sale on Ebay and decided to have a bit of a punt. Not having seen the boat in the flesh and knowing what wooden boats can be like, it was a total gamble. I bidded, eventually bought her, went to see the seller, shook hands and handed over some money. The previous owner was kind enough to move the boat up the river, to a mooring I’d rented with a boatbuilder that knew the boat – a bit of a base to start work.

That was a couple of months ago now. Over the last few weeks, I’ve tried to do as much as possible between my day job to make some progress. I’ve had the help of the local yard, Wraysbury Boathouse owned by Tim who has done various little bits and pieces for me along with providing some good advice.

In the weeks since I’ve been fitting some new electrical bits to keep the all important bilge pump chugging away (more on my leaks later), cleaning up, discovering loads of interesting problems, buying various tools and numerous bits and pieces ready for a proper stint of work that I’m hoping to start when I have a little more time or can recruit a willing volunteer to help me do it.

Most importantly I’ve been learning loads about wooden boats, buying various books, watching more Youtube videos than is healthy and basically telling everyone I know that I’ve bought a rotten old boat.

I’ve also been learning what a colourful history Perdita 2 has, above and below the water. I’ve also learned there’s another ‘Perdita’ on the Thames (hence the II) which is a very pretty well kept boat. (unlike the current Perdita 2!)

I’m expecting the whole project to be a bit of a long haul and there’s no real rush. I’m hoping to do it on a bit of a lean budget, but we’ll see how it goes.

Why have I started this website?

Well websites and digital things are my day job, so it seemed like a nice way of sharing progress. I didn’t want to put everything on Facebook as most of my friends are bored of my boat stories already. I also wanted a sort of journal that I could look back on to see how things progressed. The pressure of updating it seemed like a fairly decent little stick to prod myself with to make progress.

I’m hoping to regularly update this site with posts, photos and progress as I make it over the next year or so.

In the weeks between now and the New Year, it’s mainly about generating some cash to pay for what will be the inevitable work that I can’t do. Again, a bit more on that later.

Wish us luck and thanks for reading!

Rob