We had, in the past, always talked about buying a boat, but never really thought about it seriously until we hired a Princess 33 and spent five days on the Caledonian Canal in Scotland in October 2006. With the beautiful scenery, breathtaking views, fantastic shore facilities, vast waterscape and some unexpected warm weather I think it would have been enough to tempt anybody into owning their own boat.
At the end of our trip we had a look at some of the boats that were for sale in the boat yards in Inverness and resigned ourselves to the fact that lots more research was required. It soon became apparent that there were some fundamental decisions to be made on the type of boat that we would like, displacement, semi-displacement, planing, GRP, wood, ferro-cement, single or twin screw, fly bridge! I think the only certainty was that we required a power driven vessel.

And so the search began, mainly consisting of trawling over sites on the internet such as www.boatshed.com and www.boatshop24.co.uk which have thousands of boats listed categorised by style and price.
I spent hours searching and researching on the internet looking at the same boats over and over again hoping something would just pop up that would fit the bill.

Our first viewing was an interesting vessel, a Bruce Roberts designed, twin screw ferro-cement boat that the owner had built himself. We took a short flight over to Belfast and spent an afternoon in the company of the boats owner, firstly discussing the boat and soon progressing to boating stories and experiences.
Armed with photos, videos and notes we researched ferro-coment as a hull material. As the boat was over 50ft in length and had a 15ft beam, we also had to seriously considered how far inland we could go for a mooring. There are many pros and cons of ferro-cement hulls, but our final decision – not for us.

Our next viewing was a little closer to home, a 38’ trawler style cruiser lying at Farndon Marina (Newark on Trent) named Under Siege. We were very impressed by this vessel, a twin screw and economical GRP displacement cruiser with fly bridge and good accommodation.
Now we entered into the world of VAT (as this was not a British boat) and whether VAT had been paid on the vessel in the past, so again more research required. Although at the time we thought this boat was perfect for us, it was not meant to be. On the plus side it introduced us to Farndon Marina where we now hold a berth.

A little disheartened we carried on looking and some weeks later I came across a boat which I was very keen to view. Eric, at the time, was not so keen but he was more than happy to have a day out for a viewing.

This vessel was a 1979 Fairline 40 named J’Alimo lying in Largs Yacht Haven, not far from Glasgow on the Clyde. We made the long journey from the Midlands by road on a cold winter morning in January 2007.
The boat was on hard standing and was clean and tidy. We spent a couple of hours at the boat inspecting everything, inside and outside, and the sales office even provided us with cups of tea onboard. So here we were aboard a British built, twin screw, planing, GRP fly bridge motor cruiser. Experience was already suggesting that there should be no issues with either the VAT or the type of hull. The decision was made and after a short offer process we signed on the dotted line, paid a deposit and the boat was secured.

Transporting the boat was straight forward, we had discussed the merits of sailing her from Largs to the East coast and then inland but succumbed to our better judgement and arranged transport by road.

We secured a birth at Farndon Marina and on 16^th April 2007 J’Alimo arrived on the back of a lorry and lifted into the water. Now our boating experiences really began!