Sailing Taurus NZ

Hiatus

We successfully sailed Taurus home to Dunedin in the month’s leave that we had before having to return to work. The trip was a mixed blessing: beautiful anchorages, stunning weather, and meeting all manner of friendly folk who went above and beyond to help us; on the negative side we found a number of issues with our new purchase that the surveyor had not noticed and the vendor had kept quiet about. We were also pretty rushed and after being ‘storm stayed’ in Napier for ten days and in consequence had to sail directly first to Lyttleton and then Dunedin. 

In many ways we’d ‘enjoyed’ a baptism of fire and if Taurus needed a bit more work that anticipated, at least we also knew that she sailed beautifully, and would repay a little work in spades. Our belief that ‘we look after Taurus so Taurus can look after us’ has become a bit of a mantra, and sometimes the hardest thing has been to know when to stop working on her, because a boat, especially an old steel boat, will soak up all the money, time, and effort that its owners, or slaves, are willing to throw at it!

Over the following two years we welded up a hole that I punched through the hull in the anchor locker when chipping off rust (it was above the waterline and we were on the hard thankfully), pulled out the engine and overhauled it, swapped the drive shaft out, installed a new dripless stern gland, painted the bilge, sorted out stray current issues that caused electrolysis and then sanded the hull back to steel because the paint was delaminating (which is caused by electrolysis), installed a new electronics package including auto pilot, (something that kept breaking down on our maiden voyage), added a holding tank, purchased a new main sail and anchor chain, and so on. The only major job left to do is overhaul the standing rigging, and the only system we haven’t been through is the fridge. The standing rigging will be sorted when we get to a centre that hosts riggers (the rig was checked during the purchase and only a couple of minor jobs recommended) which Dunedin does not, and the fridge when it chooses to crap out. 

So, two years later, we are finally ready to set off again! To be fair, the delay wasn’t just about fixing the boat, but more about getting our lives organised. We had to sell a house, build another to try and enjoy passive income (this has proven to be a nightmare — don’t ask!), finish a PhD, make some money, and arrange unpaid leave. Naturally, as everyone says, the hardest thing is to cast off, to leave the security of jobs, home, and family, and take a leap into the unknown. To do that thing that so many of us wish we could do, but don’t. To risk trying to find an identity beyond job titles, and see if our relationship can cope with 24hour a day contact, the boredom of rainy days in a tiny space that won’t sit still, and the stress of making the sea our home, and anchorages and strange marinas our common place.

Of course, one person in a partnership is generally the driving force, and it was certainly easier for me (Julian) than Cara to cut the ties. My father had carried a cartoon in his wallet for many years, which showed two tramps walking down a road. One says to the other, ‘why spend your life working at a job you hate, to buy things you don’t need, to impress people you don’t like.” It had been his dream to move onto a narrow boat and potter around England, but though he retired early he also retired too late, as two months later he died of a heart attack aged only 50. His death, when I was 18, had a profound effect on me and I resolved to never be trapped in a job or situation that I disliked or that bored me. In consequence, I have serially quit several good careers, emigrated from one side of the world to the other, and have a habit of ‘searching’, as one friend put it, for I know not what. Now, as old as my father was when he died, I found myself chafing against the restraints that held the (latest) dream at bay, and increasingly anxious to get away. I was also unemployed having quit my last job to work on the boat (and because I found I hated it), and felt near unemployable thanks to a crap attitude that refused to put up with the BS that comes will all jobs. Cara, on the other hand, had a well paid and respected job that she had worked decades to achieve, as well as close family living nearby, and a more sober disposition. Bless her heart, for unfathomable reasons she agreed to take the plunge…