Rusty the Junk - Us

We are Nick and Pip.

We have been together since 1984. We met because we had friends and work colleagues in common.

We are both Mathematicians There are 3 kinds of Mathematicians, those that can add up, and those that cannot! by training, having Bachelors degrees in it. We both took up computing as a career. We own a Computer Consulting Company Consultant: A person who thinks he knows how to talk to a computer. A person who really knows how to talk to a computer is known as a fruitcake called Neptune Project Services Ltd. In addition Pip became a teacher If you can read this, thank a teacher., specialising in Mathematics & IT.

We moved onto our yacht Duet in 1990. We lived on her travelling around (and staying still) until 2005, when we moved onto our new boat Rusty.

We discovered boats while on holiday in the West Indies. We experimented with dinghy sailing on a Sunfish, a tiny little boat like the UK Topper. It's designed for solo sailing, but somehow we both fitted on! We enjoyed it so much that on our return we learned to dinghy sail properly, and planned to buy a dinghy. However the realities of the English climate, compared with the warm waters of the Caribbean, encouraged us to upgrade our ambitions to something with shelter.

We bought Duet at the end of 1984, from Arthur Smith, the Father-in-Law of a work colleague.
Arthur offered to show us the ropes as part of the deal. Since he was a Yachtmaster (which should mean highly competent in all the necessary skills), we accepted gratefully. However after he lost his bearings and very nearly ran aground in the mouth of the Hamble (his home waters), we began to wonder. On another occasion, returning from Cowes (across the Solent), we saw a red flare not far away. This is bad news for the people who fire it - it is the same as shouting "Mayday", which means "We are sinking help us!" Arthur's reaction to this was one of complete nonchalance, and we continued on our way. Later we were to find out that there is an absolute requirement for every vessel to do something, even if it is only make sure that someone else knows of the problem. Eventually we decided to learn it all from scratch, and took the RYA theory and practical courses for several years.

After participating in the rat race for many years, we decided that retirement would suit us better. We stopped working. Sold our houses. Made some modifications to Duet and moved aboard her in 1990. We had a big leaving party from Poole, where everybody celebrated that we were finally leaving.

Having lived on Duet for about 2 years, we came to the startling conclusion that she wasn't really big enough to be a home for two comparatively large people.

Thus began the search for something larger. We felt that we only wanted to upsize once, so we began looking at quite large boats. Our friends Jan and Rina live aboard a 13m sailing yacht and that seemed a good size to aim for. We searched the length and breadth of the UK for over a year. Actually this isn't an exaggeration, we included Inverness, Plymouth, South Wales and most of the East and South coasts.
Eventually we found Rusty. Funnily enough she wasn't on the coast at all, in fact she was near Huntingdon, almost in the centre of England. She was only part finished, well actually that's an overstatement, she was only part started. However she was built of steel, which was our material of choice, although we didn't expect to be able to afford a steel hull. What there was, was extremely fair, the initial builder had been a boilermaker and had access to very large metal rolling machines.
The man we bought her from, was in a desperate financial state. He was married with children, his wife was expecting another baby, he had been made redundant and his house was being re-possessed. Surprisingly enough he didn't actually bite our hands off when we offered him cash, but it was very close.

That was in 1993, in 2005 we launched her and moved aboard. There was another major party, this time from Southwold. Everybody cheering and celebrating that we were finally leaving. Deja vu?

Now we are travelling around, fitting her out as we go.