Making a Splash in France
Our new Jeanneau 51 was in transit from the factory in Les Herbiers to the southern coast of France— a two-week trek across country on a monster of a vehicle permitted only to drive at night.
Like new parents, we’d been a bag of nerves since we first viewed her at the Jeanneau factory near Le Mans. Would our baby be damaged in transit? Would something go wrong? The whole affair was outside our control and it showed.
To keep our anxiety at bay, we decided to occupy ourselves with a roadtrip of our own. In the time it took for Wild Spirit to be shipped, we explored the northern and west coasts of France from Calais to Brest taking in the wonders (and food) of Brittany and Normandy.
Only when she’d arrived safely and been slipped into a massive cradle tucked into a corner of the SAS boatyard in Canet-en-Rousillon, did we sigh with relief. We raced from the north to the south of France to time our arrival with hers.
On the day she arrived, we stared at her through a chainlink fence outside the boatyard. There she was. Perfect. Spotless. Bigger than I remembered. A sleek, white, whale-like creature with a 9-foot keel.
Standing there, we felt so close, but she still wasn’t ours. The fate of our new boat baby rested in the hands of the commissioning agent for at least two more weeks. There was much to be done before we’d be handed the keys.
In the meantime, there was little else for us to do except celebrate our baby’s arrival with champagne on the beachfront in Canet. We chinked glasses, took a deep breath, jumped back in the car and hit the road again.
Over the next two weeks, we drove through the spectacular Dordogne region, visiting fairytale castles, meandering medieval villages, and marveling at the cave paintings in Lascaux. We kayaked on the river Dordogne and left no drop of wine or morsel of food behind.
Before long it was time to return to Canet, where our new baby (sans mast) was already sitting demurely in the water. Fortunately, we arrived just in time to watch the mast get skillfully lowered by crane and fitted in place.
A few days later, on launch day, we show up all the jitters of new parents.
I stepped aboard our as yet un-christened yacht for the first time and was struck by a rather surprising and alarming feeling. We were about to embark on our inaugural sail and I had no desire to leave the mooring. After 18 months of yachtlessness, I questioned whether I remembered how to sail. By this time, I also knew all the pitfalls and potential disasters that awaited outside the safety of the marina berth.
A photograph taken of us that day shows Kevin with a broad smile. Beside him, my jaw looks clenched and my lips are pinched in a tight upward turn—happy with a momentary case of misgivings. Whereas the look on Kevin’s face says, “OMG! We’re really doing this!”, my face says, “OMG, what have we done?”
But moments, tides and boats are all made to move.
I was nervous at first to leave the dock, but after we motored past the lighthouse and hauled out the brand new furling main, the fresh salty air hit my lungs. The gentle motion of the sea shook out the cobwebs and brought it all back. Of course, I remembered.
It was like a being a new parent the second time around. You think you’ll forget, but the knowledge from your firstborn is all there. This time you know what to do. You also know how much can go wrong. You know the good, bad and the the ugly of boat ownership as well as you know the joys and sheer exhaustion of parenting.
You know it, you embrace it, and you get on with the good life in front of you in a really big way. Any trepidation I had soon faded to bliss. And there we were with our first season on our new boat behind us.