18th APRIL 2022

Buying a sailboat is a huge step for us. There have been two other occasions that we almost bought a boat. Once in December 2020 when we put in an offer for a 31 ft sailboat in Pangkor Marina but our offer was rejected. The other time was in April of 2021 when we put in an offer for a 33ft steel sailboat, our offer was accepted but I got cold feet at the very last minute pulled out.

Concerns about buying a sailboat :

1) Buying a Lemon

2) Marina Fees

3) Difficulty Selling the Sailboat

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

In September 2021 James Khoo, the Operational Director of Pangkor Marina asked us to come use his 48ft sailboat. At the time, Malaysia was coming out of a six month lockdown so we were more than ready to get out of our home and learn new skills.

We spent four months from October 2021 to January 2022 in Pangkor Marina and we created 12 episodes for Season 7 on our Youtube Channel. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there with James and managed to gain some boat life confidence.

In our last episode of Season 7 – there was a sense of disappointment in my tone of voice because although I was grateful for everything that we had learned, Jame’s sailboat was still on the hard stand and there was still no sign of us sailing. In February, we decided to take time off from shooting videos and went home to think about our next step. Did we want to continue in Pangkor Marina or should we buy our own sailboat? Were we finally ready for the big commitment of owning a boat?

HOW DID WE GET TO KNOW PETR & JANA?

In 2019, when Rene and I first began looking for sailboats, we chanced upon a Facebook advert posted by Petr. He was selling his sailboat named Janna but his asking price was way above our budget so we just quietly read his blog http://www.klubko.net/en/ and hoped that some day his price would come down closer to what we could afford to spend.

In 2020, when the pandemic changed the course of our plans to drive to the UK, we decided to reach out to Petr by email and enquire about the sale of his yacht Janna. We introduced ourselves and told him we were a fan of his blog and that we were hoping to own our own sailboat some day. In my email to Petr, we asked several relevant questions regarding Janna’s engine, rigging and his reason for selling her. We wanted to gauge Petr’s response to see if there was a chance for us to negotiate a price for his boat. Petr replied almost immediately and answered our questions in great detail. We were open and honest about not being able to meet his asking price and so we just kept in touch.

In September 2021, Petr informed us that Janna might soon be sold to someone and whether we were ready to buy her as he would love for us to be the new owners. Petr then gave us a very special price that was finally within our budget but we could not proceed because we had just moved to Pangkor Marina and started Season 7 with James Khoo. We were unable to back out of our commitment with James so we let fate decide if Janna was to be ours one day.

PATIENCE really is a virtue

Come January 2022 we finally ended Season 7, we immediately shot Petr an email to check if Janna was still for sale. He replied almost immediately that she was recently washed and ready for us to buy her!!

We let three months pass before finally getting ourselves to Langkawi to look for a sailboat. We contacted two brokers, Paul Jackson and Rachel Honey. We viewed various sailboats before finally viewing Janna. We wanted to be sure not to make a wrong judgement on size. We got onboard a 27ft, 31ft, 35ft, 37ft, 41ft and 42ft sailboat. A big surprise to us was how both Rene and I seemed to prefer smaller boats! I guess living in a campervan made us appreciate small spaces.

Janna was is perfect for us as our first sailboat and we will cover why in a future article.

We accepted Petr’s offer to purchase Janna and now we’re packing up our lives to move onboard with our two dogs and a cat!

WHAT’S NEXT?

A long list of things to do and we look forward to it! Vanhalen is being sold to a dear friend who will be kick starting her Zero Waste Refiller business. We have been busy preparing Vanhalen for his new journey with her. Soon as we can, we kick start our long awaited boat life journey on our very own sailboat Janna. The meaning of Janna is Eden in Arabic & coincidently, Eden is my middle name. She was built the same year I was born 1974 – Are we fated to be together? Of course!

WISH US LUCK!

FIRST TIME VIEWING OUR SAILBOAT (BEFORE PURCHASE)