When was the first time you saw your boat ?

Linking to my last blog post I found photos of our old and current boat. It got me thinking when was the first time we clapped eyes on our four boats we have owned - and I include our shared ownership boat in that list.

In order of ownership we've had;

1. Sylph  - a 57 foot Pat Buckle cruiser stern shared ownerships (Ownerships) boat
2. Comet - a 45 foot Teddersley (needs checking) cruiser stern boat
3. Waterlily - a 50 foot Derby boat builders (needs checking) semi trad boat
4. Percy - a 60 foot Tony Redshaw built traditional stern boat.

Sylph - frustratingly I can remember some of the other Ownerships boats we viewed before deciding on Sylph. I certainly remember going to Barton Turns Marina to view one boat. I think Sylph was on an online mooring on the Shroppie, up from Barbridge junction..... I may have a photo or two from that time I'll have a dig. Anyhow this is a nice shot of Sylph - now in private ownership around Nantwich I seem to recall.

Comet - easy one this as it was between Christmas and New year at Hunts lock. It was our go to place to do some gongoozling only being about half an hour from our house. We had wanted a boat of our own after getting the bug hiring and then owning a part share. Fradley was my mooring of choice and at that time moorings were difficult to get and you could still with a bit of a wangle transfer a mooring with a boat. We had followed the build blog of Chris and Stella Wells's boat (no known relation) and they were recently moored at Hunts lock. I recall I could not quite see the phone number on Comet's for sale advert in the window so I emailed Chris to ask he pass it to me next time he walked past the boat.

Found the details on my old Waterlily blog - have a read here. It was the 1st January 2008 we first saw Comet

Waterlily - Again I blogged about the viewing of Waterlily (why no pictures !!) here . We brought her from Whilton marina, a bit of a good and bad experience if I recall correctly. Looking back it was the 14th of February 2008 when I first saw Waterlily in the steel so as to speak. We'd only had Comet less than a couple of months but I knew I wanted a forever boat and Comet was not that boat - too many limitations and too costly to improve to what I wanted, plus we had the hard to get mooring at Fradley now. Fickle or what ! It's all down in the Waterlily blog but by summer Comet was sold ( at a profit) and Waterlily was in our ownership. 

Percy - I remember vividly the trip down to Weedon to view Percy. I was a little apprehensive meeting both the boat and her owners Tony & Gill Redshaw. The broker Tony Heathcote from Tollhouse Boat sales met us and we did the tour and were welcomed and impressed in equal measures. Money as ever was going to be an issue but where there is a will there is a way and I've always tried to make our money 'work' ! Another viewing and some haggling and we had two boats - again! 

Pleasingly I did record the date we first saw Percy with a photo (I must have been learning) It was Saturday the 27th October 2012 and we put our offer in on the 31st October 2012. 

So there you have it.... our four boats. Will we ever have another..... I doubt it. Some days I wonder if we get the full use out of Percy. Then I visit and it's like coming home (Percy was my home for two years) If we did then it would be a smaller boat but to be honest I think when the time comes we'll downsize to hire boats. Hopefully not for some time to come, but I'd not want to be too presumptuous about anything in the future, the last couple of months have taught me that.

So get blogging about your boats  - lets have some more reflections on past boat ownerships - I'd like to know if I'm unusual in having had four boats ?