We are Anne (35), Tom (36), Jasper (4) and Rosie (2) from Australia and now of no fixed address as we follow our dream to sail around the world.
How do we come to be sailing around the world? We discovered the Papillon at adm in Amsterdam while travelling through Europe in 2009. Living aboard were Rob and Arjenne and their kids Zora and Manu. Seeing the ease and happiness of the kids on the ship as they played and lived aboard was fantastic to us. We thought , ‘what a wonderful way to grow up!’ and now our kids have a chance to enjoy this special childhood too….. The ship inspired wild dreams of adventure, sailing and freedom and in a moment of courage or madness that has changed our lives we decided to buy her. People told us we were crazy as we had very little sailing experience, had never skippered a boat before let alone a ship of this size, had no navigation experience and we were going to try and launch our ‘rond de wereld’ adventure from a foreign country where we couldn’t speak the language but….. We sold our house in Sydney, Australia, packed up our lives, said farewell to friends, our family, our Citroen DS (and summer) and moved to icy and snow covered Amsterdam. We moved aboard on Feb 10, 2010.
Currently we are working on preparing the ship for the voyage. There is a huge amount of new skills to master and new knowledge to gain but we are learning fast. With the support of the incredible people at ADM we are quickly acquiring the skills to repair and maintain the wooden hull, diesel engine, shipboard electrics and the other systems vital to the smooth running of a cruising vessel like De Papillon. If you want to volunteer and learn about conserving and repairing a wooden boat feel very welcome to contactus. We are very open to advice and tips from fellow wooden boat enthusiasts. You can follow our conservation efforts in our blog.
We are practising our sailcraft following a summer long immersion into the world of sailing through Pacific Sailing School in Sydney Harbour (THE BEST!).
We are currently toughing it out with the Dutch regulations - they don’t like foreigners on a Dutch registered ship it seems!!!! Wish us luck with the many nautical miles of red tape we have to navigate in this country to even get out sailing!