Yikes! I've bought another boat!

Well, I've gone and done it again.  I've bought a boat that needs more time and attention than I probably can spare.  An unfamiliar boat is always a little scary.  There are hundreds of things to learn about her and she needs lots of work, but rather than feeling stressed, I'm calmer and happier than I've been for a while.  I guess I just need a boat in my life.

Diona is my fourth boat.  The first was a 1935 Wheeler Playmate, much like the Playmate Pinar built for Ernest Hemingway or the one captained by Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo.  Wheeler was the Cadillac of wooden boats in the 1930s.  The Playmate was built of cyprus and mahogony with etched crystal panes in the galley dish cupboard and red cedar decks inboard.  Every line was elegant.

My Playmate wasn't in such lovely condition, and it was a struggle to keep her afloat.  Her hull was soft as butter and I fought a constant battle against dryrot topside.  Even after having her caulked and sealed, she took on more water than most people would be comfortable sleeping above.  I became expert at re-wiring shorted bilge pumps when the water sloshed over the floorboards.  She was my home for five years at the 79th Street Boat Basin on the Hudson River in Manhattan when I lived in New York.  When the Hudson froze, as it did in colder years, the idea that half an inch of soft 65 year-old planking was all that kept me from the river would keep me awake as I listened to the pops and clicks of ice squeezing the hull.  I was her last careful owner.  She sank three years after I sold her, and I swore never to own another wooden boat. 

My second boat was a 1988 narrowboat - ten tons of steel and very dry and comfortable inside.  She was just the thing for cruising the canals of England with my boys.  I bought her in 2004, cruised the Grand Union Canal, the Oxford Canal, the Rivers Lee and Stort, and many short cruises along the Regent's Canal in London.  I had joined St Pancras Cruising Club in 2003, so Babylon was moored at St Pancras Yacht Basin (which ironically holds no yachts and is hours inland from anywhere you might sail one).  Though I could cruise as far as the Thames locks at Teddington and Limehouse on the canals, her high centre of gravity and low freeboard and exhaust meant I couldn't safely take her on the river.  As I gained confidence, and the boys grew larger and stronger, I began to want a more seaworthy craft.  I sold her in 2008 when I moved to Dubai.

My third boat was a Laser, which hardly counts as a boat if you think of a boat as something to keep you out of the water.  I'm told that people who learn to sail a Laser can sail anything.  I had learned to sail bigger boats when I was young, and had kept up my status as competent crew by sailing several times a year  as the occasion offered, and held an RYA Day Skipper certification, but the Laser was a challenge all the same.  I spent more time in the water than out of it at first, as the Laser likes to tip over at the least little error in judgement.  I gradually grew competent enough to stay more or less dry, but I never loved her.  The best thing about the Laser was that it secured me membership of Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, a friendly place to go for sunset cocktails and great food after a hard day's graft at the office.  I like my sailboats big, sociable and offering somewhere to rest my gin & tonic and take a nap.  I now sensibly prefer them owned by my friends or charter companies.  I sold the Laser when I returned to England in 2010.

I always meant to get another boat.  I was pretty clear what I wanted.  She had to have enough power for the tidal Thames, and preferably be seaworthy to cross the Channel on a fine, calm day to cruise the rivers and canals of the continent.  I've not got the leisure for that now, but I hope someday I will.

And then Diona came up for sale at the club.  She is moored at St Pancras, opposite my old narrowboat.  I didn't love her at first sight, but now that I am getting to know her, and putting the work into refitting her, the love just keeps growing.

Diona is a 1974 Hampton Safari Mark II, built for holiday charter on the Norfolk Broads.  Because she was designed to be driven by inexperienced drunken Brits on holiday, she is stronger and heavier than you might expect for a GRP boat.  That's probably why there are so many still afloat.  GRP was new and competing with steel for inland boat construction in the 1970s, so they erred on the heavy side in boats of that era.  Diona has been owned for the last ten years by a marine engineer, so I know she is sound structurally and mechanically, which is very reassuring.

Diona is very comfortable inboard, with a fixed double bunk, everything essential in galley and head, and front steering position with sociable seating for entertaining while you cruise.  The sliding canopy allows for open air on a fine day and cover in the rain or cold.

There is a terrific Hampton Safari Owners Club to provide support on her refit, and I've already gone to them for advice on improving the slide of the canopy and refurbishing the windows.  

My favourite things about Diona won't change: lovely solid oak fit out inside, an oversize Perkins 60 engine that makes her powerful enough for tidal waters, and a weedcutter around the propshaft to shred any weed or carrier bags before they entangle the propeller - a constant hazard to navigation on Britain's inland waterways.

Her purchase has depleted my savings, and I've already spent hundreds of pounds on upholstery and bits and bobs for fit out, but it's money well spent.  I plan on being happy cruising Diona for many years.  Wish me luck.