Introducing the Why Knot

Well we are finally getting around to posting pictures of our latest acquisition! The "Why Knot"! Ever since we got to England we have been admiring the boats on the Thames River. We started looking at loats for fun, and the next thing you know, we found one we really liked and took the plunge and bought it! It is a pretty big boat for us!

We found a wonderful RYA (Royal Yacht Association) instructor, Gary Braybrook, to teach us all about manuvering it and boy has it been challenging! The Why Knot is almost 40 feet long, has 2 cagins, 2 bathrooms, a galley and a living room. It is powered by twin Yanmar 350 diesel enginesthat will cruise at about 20 mph. You get to them by pulling out the couches and getting under the floor! You can stand up down there!

With Mike's mom being ill and our trips back to KC to care for her, our training didn't really go as planned. We wanted to bring the boat up from Southampton to a marina nearby so we could do a trip with the girls when they got here at Christmas. Mike was able to train the 2 weekends that I was in KC. Gary was very patient and such a good teacher. He is all about safety and how to handle every situation. He also taught Mike about navigation and trip planning. We really like him and could never have done this venture without him!

On Dec. 15th when I got back to London, I slept about 3 hours and then Mike and I took off for Southhampton. We started the 3 day trip from Southampton through the Solent, to the English Channel, and then up the Thames to a mooring near our house. The sea was rather rough the days we traveled, although Gary said i was just a moderate sea. He wouldn't have let us out on a rough sea. We spent our first night in Dover. Pulled into the harbor just before dark and tied up just as the weather turned bad. We were eating supper in the cabin when we noticed it was snowing and raining!

The next day was beautiful and sunny but still moderate seas. We wound our way down the Thames, through London and past the parliament buildings and tied up at Chiswick for the night.

The 3rd day we spent 6 hours driving through snow all the way up the river! It was beautiful as we got about 4 inches accumulation that day! We were the only boat cruising the river that day!

We even went through some ice that had been broken up by a canal boat ahead of us at some point.

After traveling 158 out of a total of 160 nautical miles, we were stopped when the marina we were heading to (Penton Hook) called to say they were frozen solid. We were able to tie up at a pier at Bates Marina which is less than 5 minutes from our house. (They gave us a ride home too!) We would like to keep our boat there, but there is not room for us there at this time. We were able to move the boat on over to the marina pier, but not in the marina while Casey, Brian and Shannon were here. We had to go through a lock to get there. ( We had several locks all the way up the Thames past London). You'll see some of the snowy locks in the pictures.

There's a lot more to the story of the trip Of COURSE!, but just want to get some pictures posted for now! Did we get seasick? Well I did! Mike seemed to manage pretty well. We're not planning to sail on days like that though and we're not ready to attempt that yet by ourselves.

I had fun preparing meals on board. OH! And the heater on board quit working, but luckily we had little electric heaters and we have a generator on board. More adventures in the future!