Difficult Decisions

While we’ve been in Deltaville, you’ll notice we haven’t been posting, but we’re finally ready to share some big news. We’ve made the INCREDIBLY difficult decision to sell our beloved Silent Sky and move up to a bigger boat.

We absolutely LOVE this lifestyle, and we both agreed pretty early on in the trip that this is something that we want to do regularly. We’re going to sell our apartment when we get back to New York, and after a lot of discussion, we decided that since our boat is our full-time home, we want something slightly bigger. We love Silent Sky – she’s safe, comfortable, bright, and an absolute joy to sail even with her challenges with point. But 36′ isn’t a lot of space for two people to live and work in, and it would be really nice to have things like a water maker and generator.

When we started looking in April, one of the boats that was suggested to us was a J/46, and we found one for sale in Deltaville. Initially, I wasn’t really into the idea. I’ve crewed on a J/30, J/33, J/88 and J/109, and while they’re all great race boats, I couldn’t imagine living on one. But the more I looked at Windara, the more I liked her. She checked almost all of the boxes on our “must have” and “nice to have” list, so we had our broker arrange a video walkthrough. There was only one immediate drawback – her mast height (65′ with instruments). We thought long and hard about that and decided to call it off, but our broker came back and let us know that the height is actually 64.5″ without instruments… still tight for the ICW, but kind of possible. We agreed to see her.

We did the video walkthrough with the listing broker and really liked what we saw. Afterwards, we followed up with our broker (we’re working with Jeff and Jean at Two Can Sail, and they’re fantastic!) and made an offer. We didn’t hear anything for a few days and were convinced we’d been outbid, especially when we saw “Sale Pending” on the listing without having heard from anyone – but they were just waiting for the seller to review the contract. I was sad when I thought we wouldn’t get the boat, and I was sad when I found out we just might. I won’t pretend there weren’t tears in both cases.

We booked a slip for a week at Deltaville Marina for the survey and sea trial. The owners were aboard when we first arrived, and we didn’t want to bother them but were itching to go see her up close. We waited for them to leave to get our first look, and we were giddy. We couldn’t wait to get aboard for the first time and check her out.

On the sea trial, we struggled to remain objective – we were even more excited about her after seeing her in person. She sails wonderfully, she’s been well-loved, she’s got great storage, and she ticks pretty much all the boxes. There were, of course, some issues. Leaving the slip, the owner put the boat in forward, and it didn’t move as fast as expected. He then put it in reverse, and we went forward faster… so we couldn’t do a full engine test. We still got to sail her a bit, and she feels amazing (we were doing 6kts in 8kts of breeze with lazily trimmed sails). The surveyor also found a frozen seacock and there were issues with the inverter. However, the current owners have been great about making sure all of those things get dealt with. Given the work that needed to be done, we agreed to push the acceptance and closing dates.

Our second sea trial got pushed back a couple times, but everything checked out, and we got a chance to take a second look around and ask questions we didn’t think of the first time. The owners have been wonderful – offering to answer questions, walk us through setting up the boat, giving us permission to go aboard to take measurements once we’d signed the acceptance – and they seem happy we’re buying her.

The process seemed to take forever, and we didn’t dare share anything until all the “i”s were dotted and “t”s were crossed (or maybe “i”s crossed and “t”s dotted?) But it’s officially official, and Windara is ours. We’ll soon be properly renaming her Elegant Chaos (I fully believe in a proper denaming and renaming ceremony), but our first order of business is to get everything settled in and continue our journey north.

Right now, I am an insane mix of emotions and it’s been a hell of a roller coaster ride. I’m excited about more living space, better storage, a water maker, and so much else about this boat. I’m also terrified of 10′ more length 2′ more width, 1.5′ more draft and 6′ more air draft. And I’m heartbroken over the idea of selling Silent Sky. She’s been a mentor, life coach, home… and she’s afforded us so many incredible experiences over the past 8+ years. Over the past few weeks, each “last” aboard Silent Sky has been incredibly difficult, and there have been lots of tears.

There are still a few stories from our final weeks on Silent Sky that I’m excited to share, and we’ll continue to share our journey. We hope you’ll join us for this next chapter!