About

Some time ago we decided to go sailing. We bought a 26foot MacGregor and named it ‘Lulu’ after Lucy Winter.  After many eventful and enjoyable  sailing experiences the wider horizons beckoned us.

We want adventure and to travel Europe each year in comfort (but not from a hotel or bus seat).

‘Austral’ is the name of our 38 ft Jeanneau Espace 1100 that is currently in France. At present it is moored in a small port (Leucate)  about 20 miles from the Spanish border.

We fell in love with this boat because it’s a a deck saloon, has a low draft and can be easily adapted to travel the French canals.

A deck saloon is a yacht that has big windows giving you lots of light in and great views outside. It has an internal helm which means you can sail outside when the weather is pleasant and inside comfortably when the weather is nasty.

The mainsail and the head sail both roll up, making sailing safe in all weather conditions.

Below deck are the galley, 2 bathrooms and 3 double bedrooms, providing plenty of room for visitors who happen to ‘drop’ in.

We hope to spend at least 3 months each year travelling around the Med, up the French canals through to London and Amsterdam and hopefully down the Danube to Turkey and the Greek Isles. Our first sail in 2011 will be to Barcelona then around the French coast to Monaco, back to Marseilles then up the canals to Lyon where we will winter our yacht in a marina.