Eliza jane

2014-2015 and NB Eliza Jane.
After over 18 years Jill and I were selling our much loved barn conversion on Dartmoor and desperate to buy another good boat, but couldn’t do it without funds from the house sale.
The sale fell through twice and it was putting a huge strain on us. So with what funds we had we bought Eliza Jane, a 42′ 1997 Stoke Boat and went cruising to regain our sanity.
EJ was a great boat, thanks to previous owners David and Janet, but at 42 feet was compact to say the least. Ideal for normal holidays, but not perfect for long term cruising. But we did do two seasons with her, which taught us exactly what we needed in our next boat.
Eventually in 2015, while in Llangollen on EJ we sold the barn conversion, great. We cruised back to Festival Park Marina in Stoke to go home but called in at Stoke Boats for diesel. It was here we talked to Mike Adkins and booked an overwinter build slot for a bespoke boat to be ready for Crick Show in May 2016.
So home it was, finalise the barn sale, pack up everything, sell what we didn’t need in our next much smaller house, put the rest in store and go cruising again on EJ, now homeless “Water Gypsies”!
In November 2015 we bought our much smaller town house in Exeter, which was ideal to leave and go cruising from, and with plenty of people willing to house-sit while we were away.
Throughout that winter and spring 2016 our boat was built.
All the pictures from 2014 and 2015 can be seen by clicking here in my Google album.