Becoming a boat owner

You see, some people have a dream, a real sincere passion within them to reach a goal or achieve something – perhaps it may be a career, a location to move to, or a sporting achievement you name it but the one thing in common is it will not fade and one will not give up that wish to one day make your own dream come true.

For me the fire that brought my own dream to life began as an 8 year old being brought on the Norfolk Broads aboard Saucy Gem 5 from Richardson’s.

This was not the first time I had been afloat on the Broads, I had previously been on the Broads as a baby and toddler but that around Hickling and on many a day boat but Saucy Gem was a boat you could live on and while compared to today’s standards it was sparse with a ‘thunder box’ as the loo, a black and white television that might last a couple of hours on batteries it was simply so exciting to be on the boat.

Therein began often yearly trips to the Broads with a build up to them that brought such excitement and much pestering of my family to choose the Broads to holiday on than anywhere else. I remember saying to my mum at Potter Heigham one day

“I want to have a boat and one of those chalets one day”...

By the time I was 21 I treated us all to Westminster Bridge from Bridge Craft at Acle – and then strangely that was that – I began to explore Europe and generally experience the world as a twenty something.

Despite the time passing without going on the Broads my original dream still was within me and by 2011 I was back and with vengeance – 4 boats in 2011 alone and on it went, joining forums, meeting people, making new friends and of course recoding more episodes for the Captain’s Blog but now I was looking at boats on brokers websites, costing things, working out what one could do to boats mechanically and cosmetically spending hours on chandlers websites and learning ‘all things boat’. 

In May I got a phone call from Charlie Griffin asking a couple of things the first was about carrying out work on my dad’s house in the Cambridgeshire Fens, the second point blew me away – would I be interested in buying a 1/5th share in Broad Ambition?  We suffice to say in less than 24hrs the answer was yes and then the formalities of the agreement and signing the same, along with payment to the syndicate member selling their share began. 

And so here we are 1st July 2015 some 28 years on from when I my dream originally began to own a boat on the Broads, I can finally say I do.  I guess now I need to think about a chalet at Potter Heigham lol.