When sangria leads to poor decisions. 🍷
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
That's a good question! Looking back on our past experiences with cruising sailboats, we always find ourselves in trouble while enjoying a glass of sangria in the Azores and Canary Islands.
In 2014, after making our first Atlantic Ocean crossing from Miami to Horta (Faial), we got to talking about an aluminum boat that could one day take us to the Arctic.
We had high hopes, and lots of delusions, that we could complete a 9 month full refit on this hunk of metal that had been abandoned in Southern Florida for 10 years. 2.5 years after moving her from storage to the work yard (and that was after crossing BACK across the Atlantic to return on our first cruising boat to Florida), we did splash the Alu boat and head out for a grand adventure.
Completing our goal of sailing her into the Arctic Circle, we had been wintering over in the UK when we decided to escape the cold for a few weeks and take advantage of incredibly cheap flights to Tenerife. Think $140 round trip.
Sitting in a Montaditos, we discussed how poor the aluminum boat was at sailing, and how much we missed the performance cruiser of our previous Sabre. But...multihulls were the future, and honestly, I was tired of getting seasick from every passage we went on.
Mart had hopes for another refit, but I was adamant that the kind of time and effort we'd have to dedicate would be much better spent on a new build. We researched home builds and were eventually contacted by Max Cruise in the process.
Once again delusions took over as we thought we could complete this build in 2 years. As you can see, we're already well past that, with at least another year on the horizon.
Would I change ANYTHING about the steps we've taken in the past or where it has lead us now? Absolutely not. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be in my life, and when this catamaran does hit the water, I know I'll be filled with nothing but pride and joy. 🤩⛵
MJ Sailing
From Arctic ice in a custom aluminum monohull to building a high-performance 42ft catamaran, Matt and Jessica of MJ Sailing define technical excellence.
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