The Boat

Fidelio is an Ovni 43, built in France in 2000. A little over 13 metres long, she is made of aluminium (hence the industrial "battleship grey" appearance). We bought her in France in 2008 having decided to take a break in 2009 and do some sailing as a family.

Being aluminium, the boat is relatively light and easily sailed. She is also unusual in having a lifting keel which allows her to dry out on the beach, up some quiet creek or in small drying harbours. With two small children this was appealing and although there are some compromises involved with both the aluminium hull and the keel arrangements these are outweighed (for us anyway) by the advantages. The lack of keel is visible in the photos below which show her as I first saw her on the hard.

We sailed the boat back to the UK (Plymouth) in May, an assorted crew of Woods family and friends, in a trip which mainly involved visiting restaurants all along the French Atlantic coastline. Some pictures of this trip are below.

A Bit of Background

Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog. As most of you know, our plan is for the whole family to sail throughout July and August around the west coast of the UK, probably getting somewhere up the west coast of Scotland and perhaps, weather permiting, to the Orkneys. Simon will then bring the boat back to Plymouth, with a motley crew of friends and family, in September when the girls are back at school. Hopefully this will result in a complete UK circumnavigation by the autumn.

We intend to add posts and interesting pictures as we travel, which may be irregular and at the mercy of the wind and waves. Some early pictures of the boat from 2008 and 2009 are in the section "The Boat", others will be by location.

Ellie and Flora ("First Mate" and "Cabin Girl" respectively) have been settling in and customising their cabins in order to create space for small animals and Ellie's vast collection of books. Katy recently completed a Competent Crew course with Charlie Sailing of Lymington (also on an Ovni). It was a great course - thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in sailing. A big thank you to Charlie for his patience over the week (it was particularly courageous to trust my parking skills particularly with a 38ft boat in a crowded marina). Amazingly, I passed and am now deemed to be competent to act as a crew member.

So now we're into the final stages of packing for the trip, cleaning and arranging the house. We're spending this last weekend at the boat for more "acclimatisation" for the girls. Rosie, our beloved black labrador, is leaving us next week to stay in Worcestershire for 12 weeks with Kelly Stringfellow and members of her labrador family. We got Rosie from Kelly as a puppy and we feel very reassured that she will have a lovely stay with her, so many thanks for agreing to have her for us.

Below are some pictures of the junior crew members trying out the boat for size...