Cat. So What (2022)

So – having been let out to go boat shopping in the Dominican Republic, I returned having bought a rather tired and unloved example of a Nautitech 40.2 catamaran, with the idea that I was going to spend the next couple of years or so gradually refurbishing her and upgrading her ready for the start of our world circumnavigation adventure!

Even at 62 years old it still staggers me from time to time how naive I am and how easily my judgment is clouded in the pursuit of a dream!

I was brought well and truly down to earth when my partner finally viewed my pride and joy after I had got the boat delivered all the way across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to her new resting place of Kusadasi in Turkey. The enormity of what I had let myself in for dawned when I realized that I could not work out how I was going to find enough time in Turkey to carry on the work as our lives were still due to be lived in the UK for at least the next 2-3 years! So after the reality dawned, I set about finding suitable companies to do the work which I had been planning to do myself.

I took to Facebook and consulted the sailing community which I was finding were becoming the unseen friends that I could rely on since many of them have already been through similar experiences and some of them still rely upon finding suitably skilled tradesmen to carry out boat work for them. I immediately discovered that the new home for my boat was not well situated to have a choice of the necessary tradesmen to choose from to have boat work done. Instead, she should have been 120 or so further miles further south in Marmaris.

So now at the beginning of a 2 week's holiday, originally intended to introduce my family to our new floating home to be, instead, I now needed to sort out people to get the work done and make sure that everything was going to be in place and ready to rock and roll by the end of the 2 weeks! Initially, I started to look for the individual trades that I would need to carry out the work that was required, but it soon became apparent that the project that I had walked into was far bigger than I was going to be able to manage at a distance of over 2500 miles.

Fortunately, the cavalry was just around the corner but I didn’t know it yet! After various recommendations came in from the sailing community, I soon came across Yachting Technical Services. I sent off an email with a simplistic description of the work that I would be looking to have done and kept my fingers crossed.

That day I kept my fingers crossed all day that I would get a swift reply and not only that but that it would be positive. All through that day I compiled an extensive spreadsheet listing all of the dreams that I had for the old girl that was waiting in the Marina just down at the bottom of the hill from the apartment that we were staying in, hoping that the reply from them would be positive. Sure enough the following morning at 06.50 an email landed in my inbox confirming that they would be able to carry out all of the work that I had previously outlined using both their own engineers along with a team of subcontractors that they worked closely with on a regular basis. The more we got into a conversation about the logistics and details the more I discovered that the team of subcontractors were all people that I had previously had good recommendations for from the Facebook sailing community. My list then followed. Again I waited with bated breath, hoping for a positive response, and was again rewarded by the positive reply. Behind the scenes my contact had already started discussions with the marina manager at Yacht Marina Marmaris for space ashore, haul out and for some time in the water after work was completed for commissioning and shakedown!

He confirmed that he and a couple of his subcontractor colleagues would come to Kusadasi on Thursday to meet us and to carry out a detailed survey of the boat to confirm the work that was going to be required. Thursday arrived and sure enough, He arrived with 2 of his subcontractor teammates. The three of them then proceeded to carefully inspect the boat to see the extent of the work that they were taking on.

I have to confirm at this stage that I had pretty much decided that they were going to get the work and could only dare to hope that the estimates that they were to come back with were somewhere in the ballpark that I had in mind.

I immediately too a liking to the guy – He is the friendliest and most accommodating gentleman that I have had the pleasure of doing business with and I soon discovered that he and I were on a very similar level in terms of expectations for the project and as an engineer, I can tell you that it is not an easy thing to entrust your project to the hands of another. His office team played a massive part in my project and worked tirelessly to ensure that every aspect of the refit was minutely organized and completed. The level of customer service that I experienced was superb and I could not fault their attention to detail in any way.

Anyway, the estimate arrived and though it was a bit more than I had hoped for it was certainly about what I expected it to be and so the show is now on! 2 days later having had some emergency work carried out locally, we set sail from Kusadasi to Marmaris expecting a fairly leisurely cruise with gentle winds predicted and following the emergency work, both engines in working order!

This was fairly short-lived however as no more than 10 miles out of Kusadasi, one engine promptly stopped – (seemingly a fuel problem which I was not able to overcome at that time). We soldiered on and the winds were kind to us until night fell and rounding around the Kos headland where all of a sudden the benign 12-15 knots turned into a threatening 25-30 knots making me panic about the possibility of our remaining engine giving up the ghost, our already ripped and repaired mainsail shredding and us being blown onto the lee shore that we were rounding.

In the end, my fears were not realized and we survived the journey arriving in Marmaris the following day. We were greeted by an ever-friendly him, who had all the arrangements perfectly organized, and we duly tied up in our allotted temporary berth until the following morning when the crane was ready to lift her out and move her to her new temporary home ashore for the next 3 months.

They knowledge and expertise surrounding boats of all shapes and sizes are magnificent and through the life of the project, I learned that he has done work for very many of the boats that are in all the Marinas in Marmaris and beyond and that all of his customers are happy and are proud to call him their friend – a remarkable feat in the world of boats and yachts. Over the course of the next 3 months, the work ensues my old girl is stripped to the bare bones, and all manner of work is done from completely re-spraying the interior of the boat, repairing rotten floors and panels, and generally re-conditioning everything on the boat as well as installing all of the luxuries and mod cons that any blue-water sailor could dream off to create a perfect floating home to sail around the world in. With mostly daily communications with the team and a cloud-based library of photos and videos updated daily, I felt like I was almost there much of the time.

Here we are some 3 months later with a few moments of discovered nightmares overcome as if they were all in a day's work (which of course they are for this experienced team) and I am left overwhelmed with the results that they have produced. I could never have dreamed that they would be able to turn the unloved ugly duckling into such a beautiful swan.

I can only say thank you to the whole team and I am glad that I took the leap of faith to have this major refit carried out by them and his teams.

I would not hesitate to recommend him or any of the subcontractors if you are contemplating having a refit done or indeed to have boost work done for you of any description.

Thank you so much.