marine.digital

I purchased Ainvar a few days after the the Covid lockdown was lifted in Spain.

As I have worked on new build and refits on all sorts of motor and sailing vessels up to 100m, I have a very good knowledge of what to look for in a survey, the amount of work required to fix, and costs. As Ainvar was very inexpensive for an Aluminium yacht the purchase was fairly good value if I did a lot of the work myself.

So the first step, delivery to Barcelona.

What was not obvious at the time was the reluctance of crew to leave their health authority area. In Spain each area has its own health authority and it's not easy to switch between them, you need the EU Health Insurance card. The consequence was the previous owner and his crew only went as far as Almaria, as they thought it would take too long to complete the journey, and they didn't want to get stuck someplace if another lockdown was required.

There are a few crew finder apps, so I joined up and advertised. Most of the replies were people many hundreds of miles away asking me to pay for their travel to Spain. Obviously this wasn't going to happen, where were all the local sailors?

Next I found a delivery crew out of Gibralter. They were two people in their 20's who took one look at the boat and walked away, even though they already had been informed of the condition and photos sent. So back to searching.

Eventually I found two guys from Palma who loved sailing and were enthusiastic about the trip. So I paid there flights and a daily rate.

But, mast problems.