Return to my boat
Back in 2017, my girlfriend and my best friend passed away within a few weeks, It was a tough year and a good friend adviced me to shake things up in my life. I ended up selling one of my adventure motorbikes and used the cash to buy a sailboat,something I always dreamt about. She was old and worn out in a boatyard in Seixal just south of Lisbon. She needed some love and a lot of work to recover her seaworthiness and her beauthy but I’m a resourceful kind of guy and I was never afraid of getting my hands dirty so I decided to make her my next project.
At the end of each day as soon I come out of work I went directly to the boatyard to work on her until I was exhausted. I arrived home tired but with no head to keep thinking in my grief. Noah helped me get back on my feet and cope with the loss of my beloved girlfriend and my friend.
Happy after another job done
I worked with Noah tirelessly for 6 months, but in return, she helped me to get back to a happy life after the last Annus horribilis.
At the beginning of summer 2018 she was finally back on the water.
Everything was new to me. Noah appeared enormous in the water, and it was challenging to motorsail her along the tight channel from the Botyard to the Tejo river, but with the help of my brother and forever wingman, we made it through safely into Lisboa Marina.
The beautiful Noah finnaly afloat in Lisbon Marina.
Now was time to extend my knowledge of sailing and become a certified coastal skipper to start learning her lines along the Portugal Coast. I made it to Treino de Mar, a renowned sailing school not far from Noah Berth. And that was what I did in the following months to become familiar with sailing her. We sail frequently to Cascais to taste the ocean outside the river and also practicing mooring and manoovering her in and out of different marinas. After enjoying Sumer in the beautiful Sesimbra and the Arrábida coast It was time to head south on a bigger passage. , this time by myself, first solo sail to Sines, halfway to the Algarve. Sines is the bearth place of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama and one of my favorites parts of Portugal coast sinse my speerfishing trips back on my 20”s so it was not difficult to chose as the perfect winter base for Noah. The sail itself was easier than I expected, obviously with some mandatory small problems but nothing I could not fix on the way. a big Pod of dolphins was our only companie for this first single hand sail. I departed early in the morning and arrived to Sines bay at sunset. The idea was to sail her to the Algarve and the Mediterranean the following summer before going on biigger adventures, but in January of the following year, I unexpectedly suffered a hemorrhagic stroke while working out at my gym. Due to this unforeseen circumstance, Noah spent the entire year in Sines. She actually stayed in Sines until 2023, when I was able to sail her to Lagos and the Algarve with the assistance of some close friends. After one year living aboard her in Lagos Marina I sail her back to Sines. She’s Dufour 4800, a 35ft Sloop build in 1983.. She felt safe and sturdy but was dificult to sail singlehanded. All major sail operations had to be performed at the mast, which was challenging for me due to my poor balance and single working hand after the stroke . Even climbing aboard was difficult for me because of her high topsides. However, I always saw that as a challenge rather than an impossibility, and I was able to stay afloat for extended periods of time with persistence and practice. I was constantly looking at other boats in the marina to see if there was any solutions I could adapt in Noah to make my life easier and make her more cooperative with my limitations. The first change was a pair of second hand self tailing winches, The original ones in Noah wher standart and required two hands to operate . I felt great about being able to complete the installation all by myself. My next project for her was a swim platform. Getting back aboard after a swim was a real struggle. But while walking on the boatyard to see some swim platform examples I saw the most beautiful thing. Belle a Moody 41 Classic with a blue hull and the most elegant lines I ever saw in a sailboat. She had all the items on my wish list and even more I could wish for. inmast furling main, swim platform, self tacking jib and what looked like a very robust construction. My first taught was, She’s out of my leage…
She appeared somewhat battered and unkempt, yet even in that state, she has gorgeous lines…
But like any stubborn mind, I did not give up. I checked with some local friends around the marina and found she had been on the hard for at least 3 years. Some foreign sailor stopped in Sines Marina, hauled her out and left her on dry...