A STEEP LEARNING CURVE PART 2

Having swapped their 35ft sailing boat for a twin-engined Nelson 38, motor boat newbies Cas and Dave Peace share their experience of getting to grips with their new toy and their first full year afloat

- Cas and Dave Peace

In last month’s issue we described how, after many happy years as sailors, we made the switch to our first motorboat – a used Nelson 38 called Victory. Once the sale went through we brought her round from Hythe to her new berth in Gosport in a 30-knot wind before tucking her away for the winter.

The following year we began by sorting out a couple of small jobs on board then relearning everything we’d forgotten over the intervening months. Our first task was deciding whether to keep her original name. We all know the old trope about it bringing bad luck but I am pretty sure there are more boats with changed names and no subsequent disaster than there are wrecks caused by a name change. So we opted to change her name to something we could relate to. Cas came up with Sea Hound, combining the Nelson’s dogged seakeeping with our own two crazy hounds.

SAC Graphics made up a set of stick-on vinyl names to the exact style and size requested. After cleaning off the old names we simply applied these over the top. With her new name in place, we now had to update her details on the insurance and registration documents. But our Comar AIS system was still telling the world we were Victory. After Googling the instructions I eventually managed to enter the new name. Gratifyingly, it pinged up on our Chartplotter a few hours later.

One of the other jobs was to make up permanent mooring lines for our berth, which we leave on the pontoon ready to pick up when we return. They make mooring and leaving so much easier, especially if you are cruising solo, as I sometimes do, or have inexperienced crew on board. I strongly recommend them.