Dream Boat

Dream boat sounds more like a term used by 16 year old girls in 1962, but dream yacht just doesn’t sound as catchy.

From a young age I enjoyed sailing, mainly small boats like the beautiful wooden Gwen 12 we used to own (we are not sailing the one below).

The beautiful Gwen 12 (wish I could sail that well)

Of course time and money is the root of all problems related to sailing and the boats went. The dream was always kept alive by a couple of naval architecture books relating to yacht design. The two books were Further Offshore by Ed Mapes and Cruising Under Sail by Eric Hiscock. These books had an array of beautiful yachts both big and small from which I used to pick my ideal yacht. Of course the beauty of doing this when you were young was that cost and logistics were not an issue. I could just pick a yacht and sail off into the sunset. We can still dream when older, they are just complicated by factors such as, who will pay the bills, how much do I have to win in the lottery to afford all this and when will the kids move out so we can disappear into the sunset?

My dreams have again led me down the path of my perfect yacht. Today they have settled themselves on this 51 foot dinghy.

My dream yacht

It’s a beautiful example of a yawl. A yawl has a mizzen mast that is located aft of the rudder post. For those non-nautical types the smaller stick that holds one of the sails is located right at the back of the boat. The particular yawl shown was designed by Phillip Rhodes and built in 1947.

As luck would have it, this truly beautiful yacht is for sale. I can have it for the bargain price of $413,000 US. Of course I then just have to work out how to get it from Rhode Island to Melbourne, but at least I know how much I have to win in the lottery.

Perhaps I’ll just stick with the Gwen 12 (again, I am not sailing this particular one, yet).