Aug. 1, 2005 - How it started

    My ambition was to get a wooden boat capable of supporting my wife and I for life afloat. So our first boat became Jasmine, a 50 year old ex Scottish ring netter built by Nobles of Girvan. She was a good sea boat as we found on the trip back from the Isle of Man down the Irish Sea to Poole on the south coast.

A year of work on her inside and decks to us to the point where we had to take stock and consider if a boat this size, [17m], still needing lots of work, was viable for us. We decided to carry on the refit but see if she would sell if advertised. 3 days later she was sold for a 4k profit. That answered that and we took it as an omen that she was meant to go.
My wife was not happy with us not owning a boat so she stayed up for many nights over the next few weeks searching the Internet for our new boat.
My wifes searches eventually came up with "Beroe", a G.L.Watson designed gaff cutter from 1887. That was it, she was hooked. We made contact and recieved an email of photos of her bilges etc to help us decide if she was worth pursuing. She was.