A sad day for us, RAVEN is officially sold.  Of course we have a new boat in the works, the astonishingly innovative Dashew-designed FPB64, but for now we are boatless and high and dry in Tucson. Congratulations and best wishes to Raven’s new owner.  We wish him many years of wonderful cruising aboard his classic Best Boat (to sail around the world on).

Currently Raven is berthed at Gulf Harbour Marina near Auckland in New Zealand. Our captain Rod, crew Nick and Pieter, and (at the time) prospective buyer Philip had an invigorating 1,000 mile sail from Tonga to New Zealand late in September after Mike and I flew home from our Tongan vacation.  Forty knot winds for most of the trip sailing into New Zealand winter weather made for an exciting introduction to Raven and surely showed off her mettle. Cuisine for the passage was reputedly McDonald’s cheeseburgers as Pieter flew into Nuku’alofa with 50 burgers in his suitcase.

All our belongings are stowed in a storage container at Gulf Harbour and Raven is undergoing some end of season maintenance and refitting as her new owner moves aboard with all the gear he needs to implement his cruising plans.  As soon as everything is ready to go his plan is to turn Raven around and head east all the way to the Caribbean via the Panama Canal! We’re hoping he’ll drop us a sailmail occasionally to keep us updated on Raven’s whereabouts.

We can’t say enough good things about our outstanding selling agent Sue Grant, the managing director of Berthon International Yacht Brokerage based in Lymington, England. Berthon is one of, if not the, premier yacht brokerages in Europe. If you’re looking to buy or sell a yacht you might want to get in touch.

With the selling agent in Great Britain, both buyer and seller based in the USA and the boat itself in New Zealand, the time zone spread of some 14 hours was a bit of a challenge. Usually someone was going to bed just when someone else was waking up, making the windows of opportunity for phone calls few and far between. But with the internet and email communication all was handled smoothly! It’s hard to imagine international commerce before the advent of cyberspace!

Aside from that interesting complication we couldn’t have enjoyed a more professional and responsive relationship with our broker.  The Dashews have chosen Berthon as the exclusive European agent for the new FPB64 series, also impressed by the “class act” of Sue and her brokerage.

Thank you to Sue

Fair winds to Philip

and…

Goodbye Raven, we will miss you.  Thanks for the wonderful times.