Stephen Webb, a retired engineer, has sailed since he was eighth, but Debbie came into the water much later – Stuart Nicol
Stephen Webb stopped at the beginning of this year, but is still at 5:30 a.m. to prepare for his day. If you live on a boat with his wife Debbie, you have to be up and off early to take advantage of the conditions of the day.
“It depends on the winds and the tides. Sometimes we just have to catch a flood or take advantage of the winds that we know about will disappear,” explains Debbie, 65.
The couple is currently on board their yacht, the T-Shanti, near Loch Fyne on the west coast of Scotland. The 53 -foot ship is your constant home, which you share with your “boat dog” Molly the Spaniel.
Stephen, 70, a retired engineer who sold his business in spring has sailed and sailed in and out since he was eight. But Debbie, who is still working as a financial advisor, came into the water much later.
After Debbie was separated from her ex-husband in 2005, he turned to online dating and was looking for adventure.
“I decided to look for a sailor. And I found Stephen first,” she says. They bought a small boat together just a few months after the meeting before they were excited a few years later. After the couple enjoyed a life on the water to sail Devon and Cornwall.
“Then, out of the blue, this boat came for sale for £ 35,000,” says Stephen.
Debbie and Stephen are planning to sail through the Hebrides next, then Gibraltar – Stuart Nicol
The T-Shanti had been out of the water for four years and rested in Dartside, Devon, a territory from which the couple kept their other boats in Brixham.
Stephen says: “It was nice inside, but it had to paint on the outside. The owner just hadn’t done anything.”
It was clear that the yacht would require a lot of investment, but the couple was determined to make it their new home. Debbie took up a personal loan from the bank for £ 45,000; 10 minutes and a call later the boat was her.
However, they needed more money for renovation work. The couple themselves released some funds after reorganizing some of their rental objects and taking out other loans.
It would cost more than 65,000 pounds to do the works that the yacht needed before it could be restarted. Almost a third – £ 20,000 – was spent on new electronics, including solar collectors. A specialist came out to repeat the entire rigging, and the outside was repainted from blue to white.
“We were covered with blue dust for weeks,” says Debbie.
After the boat was blown through in July 2020 in its entire budget.
Since the couple had previously rented, no property had to sell it to pull outside the country. They lived there for five years at the marina, while both worked nearby. “In the end we paid about 670 pounds [for mooring] A monthPresentSays Stephen.
In the past five years, the couple has spent almost £ 159,000 for their yacht, including maintenance and excursions to the Scilly Isles and Ireland. This total amount includes routine costs, such as B. Lying fees that have added to 53,780 GBP. Another consideration is an insurance for which the couple paid 940 pounds last year.
How much a boat costs depends on the size, the age, the condition of the boat and the established. According to Boats.com, the mooring costs are often the most important.
For those who use Waterways domestically, you need a channel and river trust license – and the prices rise. On April 1, the trust introduced a 4 -propC increase and plans to further increase prices every year up to and including 2028.
The costs for boats that are constantly moving – continuously called cross -way – also increase by up to 25 percent every year.
Richard Parry, Managing Director of the Trust, says: “Our charity organization faces a combination of more extreme weather, which, due to climate change, an aging network that is expensive, with higher material prices and reduction in state funds.”
Such price recordings leave them undeterred for the web, and they are serious to spend their retirement on the T-Shanti.
Stephen and Debbie spent more than £ 65,000 for the renovation of the T -Shanti before they are sailing with their dog Molly – Stuart Nicol
After Stephen sold his business – after three years of Debbie, who tried to convince him, they were able to plan longer and participating trips. You know that it may be time to continue to live on board, but have decided to sail as long as possible and cross this bridge when you come to it.
“It was very difficult to accept that I am in retirement and lose all the customers I regarded as friends,” says Stephen.
However, boat maintenance is busy. The couple currently has an engine problem, which means that the T-Shanti has to come out of the water so that they top the hole until there is space in Clyde Marina, Ardrossan, where they can repair it.
“The maintenance on a boat is much more complicated than in a house due to the various systems you have on board,” says Stephen.
Despite the challenges and costs that come from life on a boat, it is the freedom and the opportunity to visit beautiful parts of the world that is worth it. “It is a choice of life for lifestyle, and we have spent a lot of money on providing this lifestyle choice,” says Stephen from Scotland. “Only when they come to anchores like today do you think: ‘Wow, it is worth it.”
As soon as the boat has been repaired, your plan is to sail through the Hebrides and go up the Caledonian channel in August and then sail along the east coast.
Then, after a while in Ipswich, you could spend winter in Solent or go to Portugal – you have not yet decided.
A place that you will definitely visit is Gibraltar, where Stephen’s father, who died at the age of 94, first discovered a love of sailing.
He says: “My father died recently. So we will drop a teaspoon of his ashes in every his favorite sail spots and be finished in Gibraltar.”
Life in the water means that it can be difficult to see a family, but they find other ways to stay in touch. The couple sent their contribution to Stephen’s stepmother’s address, and she opens it and tells them what it contains.
Between them they have four adult children who are scattered all over the world (one in South Africa, one in Dubai and one who moves to Amsterdam).
“The girls, it doesn’t really affect them because we can only see them if we do a plan to actually visit,” says Debbie. “The boys are doing well, they both start in their own career.
“We never expected to live the corner from each other.”
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