Why we bought her.... (no really, why???)

To any normal person, this picture would, and should, have been enough. She had been for sale for 5 years with no interested parties... that should have been enough too. Except that it wasn't.
We had ended up mooring our little Westerly in Liverpool through a very strange series of events (see our confessional in 'sailing her'- we promise we will post the story one day.) The Westerly decided to stop working on us, in pretty much every way it could, so we ended up in Liverpool to make repairs. Whilst we were here, we did what every other boater does- wanders around looking at the other boats. Eventually, we found our way into the boatyard.
Here, in the Graveyard corner, we found this. Jay fell in love at first sight.....  Kat wanted to run very fast the other way.

The problem was, in this time of equal relationships and womens rights, that Jay had set his heart on this one. And so began an intense period of pleading, begging, cajoling and constant producing of documents stating that concrete is a GOOD thing for a boat to be made out of. Honest. He has rarely worked so hard at anything.

We should probably point out here that Kat is not a physicist. The basic principles of gravity and Newton's Laws she can just about handle, but how airplanes fly and how boats float is somehow lost in her little mind. Even now, she can rattle off the theories, but actually believing they happen is another thing. All she knew was that if you throw a stone, rock, brick, shoe, car keys etc into water, they sunk. There was no way this thing will float!
However, somehow (and even now, 4 years later, I have no idea HOW) Jay managed to persuade her that this was the perfect boat for us. I think it was the headroom and standing area in front of the sink which did it! This was backed up by peering down the fore hatch and seeing the beautiful wooden floors and general space inside.

See our refit pages for more in depth pictures.

She is a Hartley Queenslander 34. She has a ferrocement hull, deck and pilot house- although the extension on the back is wooden, as are the hatch surrounds on the deck. Her draft is 5ft8 and she is a triple bilge keel. so takes the ground really well.