Overwhelming charm

I first saw the boat in mid-October 2006 in an advertisement in the Blue classifieds but wasn't really interested - a big wooden boat with a small gasoline engine at a pretty high price. But after thinking a little about it, I called the guy anyway and he sent a few extra pictures per. email. It still didn't really seem to be what we were looking for, so I kept looking for other boats.

I had found a wooden boat in North Zealand which looked interesting, so we drove over to look at it. A fine boat, but not really what we wanted. On the way home, the boat from the classifieds suddenly popped up in my mind, and my wife and I agreed to drive to Vejle to take a look at it - not so much to buy it, more out of curiosity now that we were out driving anyway.

As we walked out of the boat bridge and got the first glimpse of the boat, I realized I had been wrong. That boat was something special - admittedly there were some flaws, such as fiberglass on the front of the wheelhouse and on the wheelhouse roof, as well as various other things that I immediately could see had to be fixed, but the general condition seemed to be really good and then it had beautiful classic lines.

When we got home, we talked a little back and forth, and agreed that if the gasoline engine wasn't good enough, we could just replace it with a used diesel engine. Then I called Jørn Olsen, who owned the boat, and agreed we could come over and have a closer look at it the next day. We were greeted by a couple of nice people who served coffee and cake in a nice warm boat. We looked around a bit and were told that they had had the boat for around 10 years, and that Jørn had put a lot of work into getting the boat back in good condition. It had been pretty poorly maintained by the previous owner.

But the general impression held pretty much, Hanne and the kids absolutely loved the boat. I was a little cooler-minded - a 32-foot wooden boat is not something to buy spontaneously, it can result in some very unpleasant (and expensive) surprises, besides, I am the one who has to do all the work.

So we agreed that I could come over and take a closer look at the boat and take it out for a test run a few days later. It all went fine, I looked at the hull on the inside - there was nothing bad to see anywhere and then we sailed. The old Volvo Penta engine did really well, but I could hear that the water pump needed replacement, maybe also the timing wheels. But I was starting to feel it was quite nice that it was the original engine - it just added to the charm. The boat sailed really well, almost no stern wave at the cruising speed of around 7 knots.

I just had to think about it for a couple of days and of course, discuss it with the rest of the family. Hanne and the kids had completely fallen in love with the boat, so they let it be up to me to make the decision - if I thought it was okay, we should buy it.

The boat was scheduled to be taken out of the water the following week, and I wanted to see the bottom outside before deciding. So I went to Vejle again, but this time I was prepared to buy the boat if I did not find any significant defects on the outside.

And that's how it happened - the bottom was fine, we agreed on a price, and then suddenly it was our boat.