Sail away with Paul Chopin.
A blog highlighting the steps taken to purchase a yacht, getting out to sail her and the adventures, not to mention the cost(!) in putting her to sea.
Four legs, two boats and one part solo passage.
The circumnavigation.
My journey started in June 2018 when I left Preveza, Greece, in my Bavaria37C, a monohull bound for Gibraltar. I had decided to cross the Atlantic with the ARC and had declared that Gibraltar would be my stepping point in order to prepare the boat for this passage. I had ordered a Hydrovane self steering mechanism to complement my autopilot. I also ordered a water maker as I thought that with four crew on board and only holding 300 litres of water, I would need to make some during the trip. The person I had asked to carry out this work was, let’s say, rather slow, cut corners and, to be honest, never finished the work. An ongoing project between Gibraltar and Cape Verde. From Cape Verde we sailed with the ARC to St. Lucia. The boat was left on the hard in St. Lucia over the winter of 2018 before I sailed her back to Greece in 2019. At that point I knew I wanted to go further but needed to think about the type of boat required to sail round the world. At this point I decided that a catamaran would be the best type of boat for this passage so sold my Bavaria and bought a Lagoon 380 S2. The boat was based in St Martin so it was sailed from there down to Trinidad in May / June 2022. It was left there for quite a bit of work to be carried out before setting off again in January / February 2023. Leaving Trinidad to head through the Panama Canal across the Pacific I left my last crew member in Bora Bora. From there I sailed solo up to Sri Lanka where the boat was left once more over winter. In January 2024 I will return to Sri Lanka to complete the last leg of the circumnavigation, heading up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and back into the Mediterranean. All of the daily blogs have been written and placed on my website.
The legs
Greece to St. Lucia via Gibraltar, Gran Canaria and Cape Verde.
St Martin to Trinidad.
Trinidad to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka to Greece.
Change of Boats
In order to complete the circumnavigation I had decided that a 'larger' boat was needed. Not necessarily in length but wider, a catamaran. Also my old boat only had one heads (toilet) and a second was required. So, from a monohull, a Bavaria 37 Cruiser a Lagoon 380 S2 was bought. This boat needed to be kitted out with more long passage making equipment, most of which was carried out over the laid up period between June and December 2022 in Trinidad, before my return in January 2023.