Buying a boat is very exciting. It shouldn’t be a stressful process (though it sometimes is) but there will undoubtedly be times when you question whether you’re doing the right thing. I guess that’s normal.

Taking delivery of Seaforth was an exciting moment for both of us but also a moment that had me wondering if I would be up to the task. Since closing the deal we had organised a marina berth and the delivery trip would consist of taking Seaforth from one side of the marina to the other (to be fair, it is quite a large marina). Of course we took the scenic route by exiting the marina and having a brief sail around the harbour before coming back in and docking. The sailing part didn’t phase me, I’d helmed her during the sea trial and knew she was a big teddy bear under sail .... it was the docking bit that was weighing heavily on my mind.

I’d made sure that there were a few bodies on board to help on the delivery voyage. First up there was Ade (of course!) and Ade’s mum Christine. They were both inexperienced and while they could help, they probably weren’t going to be able to provide lots of assistance. We also had Alan on board, a friend of an acquaintance and an experienced yachtie and skipper, but basically unknown to us. I was hoping he’d be able to provide me with some support and advice, but essentially I felt that I was going to be shouldering this responsibility pretty much alone.

On the trip up the marina fairway Ade got out some fenders (all the fenders she could find on board in fact .... about 7 of them) and started festooning them all around the sides of the boat. I’m sure she imagined it would be some kind of bumpercar event getting the boat into the marina berth (I was sincerely hoping it wasn't going to be that way at all). We’d been down to the berth previously and knew there were docklines installed but we had extra lines available on both the bow and stern in case the existing docklines weren’t long enough. The berth looked huge when we were standing on the pier so I wasn’t too worried about putting the boat into the berth.

As we turned off the main marina fairway into the alley leading to our berth I slipped the motor into neutral and used the momentum of the boat to carry her forward. We slowed from the 3 or 4 knots we had been doing to around 1 to 1.5 knots and as we approached our berth I was suddenly struck by how small that gap looked and how large the boat looked. I spun the wheel and the bow turned in ... and the gap seemed to shrink further. As we entered the berth I selected reverse and slowed the boat further actually stopping her half in the berth. A bit of hopping about with a boathook and some adding of temporary docklines to make things fit and Seaforth was sitting pretty in her new home.

Perhaps it wasn’t a silky smooth docking, but it wasn’t bad. There was no shouting, a little bit of rapid movement, no collisions and it all worked out well. Worrying about it was the worst part. Since that first docking manoeuvre we’ve had worse ones and better ones .... and it seems that the better docking experiences have occurred after we’ve had a chat about how it’s all going to happen on the way up the fairway.

The champagne on the poop deck following that delivery trip was sweet indeed. The worry was gone and the excitement was back in full force. A nice sail around and a successful docking experience had me feeling reasonably confident that we’d not only taken delivery of a boat, we’d taken delivery of a dream.