From childhood dreams to 42 feet of freedom (eng)
A childhood dream
We probably all have a specific episode from our childhood that just got printed solidly to the back of our mind.
To me, that episode is at around the age of 10 on a family holiday to the south of France. As we so often would do, we walked along the marinas looking at all the different sailboats and yachts. I clearly remember seeing this white, sleek designed wooden sailing yacht with wooden masts just gliding effortlessly out of the marina with only its foresail up.
My perception of that Sailing Yacht is probably way off point and nowhere near correct. But that childhood memory has just stayed with me ever since and whenever I have had the chance to just sit, and stare over the ocean I have felt an urge to be on one of those sailing boats out on the water. It just seemed adventurous, exciting and compelling to me being out on the ocean.
November sailing - 7months prior to buying SY Melody
23 years later, 3 kids and a new perspective on the good life
Betina and I met in 2005 when we were only 17 and 18 years old. Moved in together a few years later in Aarhus and quickly we had to focus on our education, work life and careers. The traditional way of living and with the goal of one day buying a house and living the way society kind of says you have to. Nothing wrong with that, absolutely not and many years had to pass before we changed our perspective on life.
In 2014/2015 I went down with stress. Crying at the morning breakfast, nervous attacks and really had a hard time. When people ask how it was (not that I advertise about it) I tell them that I think it was bad because I can’t remember much from the first months of our first son's life.
I managed to get back on my feed and then got hit in the face again. Not by stress. In the spring of 2017 my mother was declared terminal with cancer and in the beginning of August 2017 she passed away.
Those episodes really changed the perspective Betina and I had. Not from one day to another but we gradually moved our mindset and found ourselves longing to have more time together. Spending time together and with our kids is the most important thing for us. Those adventures we have when going to the forest looking for mushrooms, being on the beach on a windy day and finding joy over the little things in life just started making more sense to us.
We slowly started planning our escape from the daily routines…
Campervan, moving to a new place or?
We started setting aside as much money each month as we could and was planning a 6 month vacation to New Zealand and Australia. Betina had been there years ago before we had kids and it was always on my bucket list to visit both countries. Planning was well underway when my dad one day called me and said ‘’There is a small sailboat for sale at the marina. It’s cheap and you should really see it’’.
Slam… All my childhood memories just blew my mind. The white wooden sailboat in the south of France literally sailed through my mind and that urge to explore the ocean came back to me. I told Betina about it and we agreed to take a family trip to the Marina and have a look at it. After all it could be fun, we agreed.
The sailboat was not in a super good shape. Absolutely sailable but it also needed a bit of TLC. I was ready to buy it, but Betina, being the reasonable of us, said we should know a bit more about boats and perhaps learn to sail before we bought one.
Shortly we joined Egå Sejlklub, the nearest yacht club for us, enrolled ourselves in their sailing theory course and spent the spring learning to sail.
We started in 2019 and thought it could be a fun way to learn a bit more about sailing. We were still planning to travel for six months and had planned to buy tickets in the beginning of 2020. We luckily never bought plane tickets, because in march 2020 all borders got closed due to Corona and we could quickly see that traveling abroad would not be possible for a long time.
SY Melody at her spot after sailing her home from Germany.
Setting our own sails for the first time
The first sailboat we started looking at was 24 feet and was painted a beautiful blue color.
That's about what we can tell about it. We knew nothing but she looked pretty and full of good stories.
But it was quickly sold and when we looked into our needs our ambitions grew with it. We quickly scaled from 24 feet, to 30 feet, then 38feet ending up at around 42-44 feet.
those 42-44 feet seemed to do the magic for us. Large enough to fit our needs and still a reasonable size to sail single handed. But buying a sailboat is easier said than done. It took us almost 10 months before we managed to close a deal on a good sailboat, within our budget and that met our specification.
A Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 42.1 from 1995.
She is named Melody and we intend to keep that name (not that we are superstitious, but you never know!)
It has been a very emotional ride the past years. But when we finally docked Melody at our harbour in Egå, Denmark it just felt right and we are eager to set out on adventures as a family and spend much more time together.