After months of browsing Ebay and a mysteriously named site called Apollo Duck I finally made the decision to buy another boat. For the first time in my boating career I let experience triumph over hope and actually went shopping for something sensible - a dinghy, which I could sail occasionally and store inexpensively at a local sailing club. I then spent weeks trying to work out what kind of dinghy and even made an offer on a type of boat called a "scaffie", only to realise just in time that it would actually be too heavy for me manhandle. To cut a long story short I ended up making an offer on a Cornish Cormorant which was kept down in Christchurch on the South Coast near Bournemouth.
Having got a tow bar fitted to our little Fiat Panda I drove down to Christchurch to pick up the boat in early April, my first long car journey since the first lockdown in March 2020. Here it is fully rigged in our front garden. It has a little bowsprit and a traditional gunter rig, which along with the hull colour makes her look a bit like our beloved "La Fulica", which I sold almost ten years ago now. Over the years I've spent a lot of time sailing in my head, but weirdly I can only do this when I actually own a boat. In the same way I am unable to fantasise about winning the lottery unless I buy a ticket. I'm looking forward to many happy years of head sailing and maybe some real sailing too.
