Just-for-fun delivery trip

PBO engine expert Stu Davies and his wife, Laura, take on the challenge of delivering a yacht from south-east Spain to Portugal

- Stu Davies

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PBO’s go-to engines guru Stu Davies and his wife, Laura, sailed their 38ft Beneteau from the UK to Portugal in 2014. Both have their RYA ICCs, and Stu also has an RYA VHF certificate.

Well, there we were, sitting in the cockpit, stern to the pontoon in the very nice, sheltered Albufeira Marina, on the Portuguese Algarve.

It was getting towards ‘Miller Time’ (for those not of a certain age, Miller Time was an advert for Miller Beer in the USA many years ago!) when a couple came strolling along. We said hello and got to chatting.

They were neighbours in our marina, who told us they were looking to change boats and buy a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 42DS. As it happened our friends were looking to sell one, which was on the hard at Almerimar Marina in south-east Spain.

My wife, Laura, and I put them in touch and so the story and an adventure began! Our friends couldn’t get to their boat in the timescale that the prospective buyers had so they asked if we would hire a car, drive to Almerimar and show the prospective buyers around the boat if they covered the costs. We said yes and within a couple of days we were on our way from Albufeira to Almerimar, some 650km away.

We hadn’t really thought about the distance, it us took 6.5 hours to get there! But it was a very nice drive, with mostly empty dual carriageway roads up to and through the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The prospective buyers loved the boat and wanted to buy it. Then the question was asked, how to move it from Almerimar to Albufeira? After a moment’s thought Laura said: “We can do that!”