Dec 10
Bought and Paid For
We bought the boat, and I am pleased to be in the happy excited phase of ownership. It feels really good to be able to tell people that we bought a boat. It gives legitimacy to our plan. I don’t get those infuriatingly skeptical looks anymore, and people actually pay attention when I tell them we’re going to sail around the world.
The boat is a 1978 Valiant 40, hull number 201. The Valiant 40 is one of the most solid blue water production boats ever designed. Valiant 40’s are heavy and solidly built and can survive anything, yet they are respected for their sailing ability as well (a rare combination).
We are naming the boat Syzygy (she was Sunshine before we bought her). Syzygy is an astronomy term referring to the alignment of three or more celestial bodies. There are three of us, aligning our plans and aspirations to make this happen, and our circumnavigation will be a once-in-a-lifetime event, so the name seems to fit.
Syzygy is currently on the hard in San Carlos, Mexico, waiting for us to return this christmas and start fixing her up. We’re going to replace the standing rigging and much of the bilge/scupper hoses so that we will feel confident about sailing her up to San Francisco sometime this spring. We’re damn excited to work on the boat. Let’s just hope we get our first order of supplies before we have to leave!
December 11th, 2007 at 3:54 am
Congratulations!…from another Valiant owner.
What are your plans;i.e how long to refurbish, depature date and how long to go around?
Cheers and good luck,
Bruce
December 21st, 2007 at 4:55 am
Congrats:
Hopefully you can keep up the blog as a journal about you and the grand design, while also keeping a more technical record – perhaps on the web site – of the work you do including the decision process and outcomes for each technical step.
In this way, we your audience get to vicariously share the experience, and those who are sailors can learn from your work. For example I already assume there will be a decision on through hulls and sea cocks, as well as bilge pumps which you could document.
Good luck with your project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy