Necessity is the mother of invention, and this couple came up with a simple solution to cover all their boating needs: owning both a sportsboat and a cruiser
Boat ownership is all I’ve ever known. The farm we own is basically a peninsula in the Fal Estuary. There’s a launching beach just 400 yards down the hill from the farmstead and we have a couple of deepwater moorings. In fact, I would have to concede that circumstances here are pretty much perfect for messing about in boats. And very much like Per Harrtoft in last month’s magazine, that’s probably how we ended up with two of them!
When we bought Molly, our Aquador 32C, in early 2022, we already owned Sula, our Yamarin 59HT. And as great as Molly is, we continued to love Sula. She’s as perfect as you can get for a launch-and-retrieve sportsboat.
It takes us less than 15 minutes to throw our gear on board, trundle down the hill and get afloat. But although she’s ostensibly a dayboat, we’ve spent many nights on board – and you can revisit our adventures in old issues of MBY.
Molly is also a fabulous boat, but she is only afloat from early May to the end of September. There are many times in the remaining months when it is a joy to be out on the water and the simplicity of getting afloat with Sula is a major plus. The Yamarin combines the best of Finnish boatbuilding with a 115hp Yamaha outboard, which is the engine chosen by the RNLI to power its Atlantic 85 inshore rescue RIBs. Sula is also remarkably good in rough seas. In fact, with her flared bow, I have only once seen green water on the foredeck.
The Yamarin emerged thick with straw and dust
So the big question was what to do with Sula once Molly arrived. We weren’t sure how it would go with the bigger boat and there are very few Yamarin 59HTs in Britain – especially with the 115 Yam rather than the more commonplace 90hp.
So we thought we would keep her. We have the shed space so it involves no extra cost at all. With interest rates being little higher than inflation and investments far from certain in this very uncertain world, we felt that the money may as well be tied up in a boat – plus it meant we would get to keep using her.
We had a blow-out holiday last spring that meant we were away throughout May and half of June. Circumstances dictated that it was a fortnight after our return before Molly could be put into the water and for those two weeks, the weather was lovely. Sula to the rescue! While she had been in a dry shed, it was one where half of it housed our North Devon cattle during the winter.
The Yamarin is tough to beat as a family dayboat
A shed where three times per week, we bedded the cattle with a straw shredder that blasts the straw and dust 40-50ft down the shed. She looked very sad covered in a layer of thick dust and straw but it’s amazing what an industrial jetwash with liquid foam can do.
An hour cleaning up the outside and half a day with a bucket and sponge cleaning the interior meant that Sula came up a treat. The battery was charged for 24 hours and I topped up her internal fuel tank with fresh E5 petrol and a good dose of fuel conditioner.
I checked the oils, lubed the cables and put some fresh grease in the wheel bearings. I put a hose to the engine and she started instantly. I ran her for a while and then we launched. The engine was initially a bit lumpy at higher revs, but it soon settled down. And it has since had a full service marine engine and is now purring a treat.
Family outings are cosy but fun on the 59HT
She is, of course, a very different beast from Molly. Molly is solid and steady; Sula is lithe and lively. Molly tops out at 17-18 knots and cruises at 13-14. Sula will hit 35 knots and enjoy a relaxed cruise at 20. Molly draws 3 feet and has exposed rudders and propeller while Sula can be beached with the engine trimmed up. But I wouldn’t want to go to Scilly in Sula!
Boats that make sense
Funnily enough, we nearly didn’t buy the Yamarin. We had bought a 16ft Fletcher, with the same configuration as Sula. We like being sheltered without being too confined so that kind of layout works well for us. But the guy selling her was doing so because he had just bought a Yamarin 59HT – and when we saw it, we knew it was what we were really looking for.
For longer trips Molly has proved to be a great choice
We kept watch in a lazy window-shopping kind of way before spotting one for sale in Devon for £24,000. It was four years old with just 36 hours on the clock. The guy had bought a bigger boat and Sula was being kept in a dry shed at his home.
About six months later, it was still for sale so I offered £20,000 and he immediately said yes. But it was at that point that two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was “Damn, I should have offered less!” The second was “Hells bells, now I have to stump up twenty grand!”
But that was 13 years ago so it’s been a brilliant buy for us and the fact of the matter is that we love both our boats. A great deal of thought went into choosing them and they work a treat for our lifestyle, so we have no plans to sell either of them any time soon.
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