Speedwell of Rhu Ship's Log

1 st of April 2009 - Buying Speedwell

Buying Speedwell

We hadn't really intended to buy a boat quite so soon as we hadn't sold Ocean Mist. However, always impatient and aware that we wanted something by the end of the summer, I organised a trip to Lymington ringing up Berthon's with a list of boats we wished to see: Bowman 40, Vanvouver 38PH and other 30-40 something foot boats, such as a Malo. Alex, the broker, said at the time there was an Oyster 435 that might also meet our requirements, so that went on our list.

When we got to Berthons Alex wasn't there so we were shown around the boats by a rather distracted young man who probably had no idea how serious we were. I'm not sure we did at the time either. The Bowmans disappointed us and they were the main ones that interested us initially. They were a bit small inside. The Vancouver was weird and scruffy. There was also a Hans Christian that was done out inside like the house of lords. Andy liked it but I couldn't stand all that dimpled leather upholstery and brass fittings.

We came away with Speedwell at the top of the list but not considering making an offer at this time. We had seen another Oyster 435 when looking for Ocean Mist and I had loved her, but she was a bit battered and didn't meet our requirements then as a boat we could put into charter.

Anyway we contacted the Oyster Brokers at Ipswich and found they had another 435 at Fox's and one in Brighton. We saw both and I fell in love with the one in Brighton. However it was a lot more expensive than Speedwell and we still had work we would want to do. We went back to Lymington the following week and spent a while on Speedwell. She was a ketch and hadn't had a lot of work done on her. She had also been relatively lightly used. We came home with our decision made easy and put an offer on Speedwell the following day. After a little bit of negotiation a price was agreed and Andy sorted out the survey. Check out our boat for details.

When that was done we then went down for a sail with the owner to check the engine started and she floated. We sailed with all 3 sails over toward Newtown Creek and then dodged the dingies back into lymington. The boat was soon to be ours and we could head off to Canada for our holiday as the owners of two boats. That wasn't meant to happen!

Fortunately we had an offer on Ocean Mist whilst we were away and she was sold shortly after our return.

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