More History & Information

We moved on to Pax Nostrum in November 1992, she was a hostel in Gibraltar and we had been travelling through Europe on a motorbike for nearly a year. She was in a poor state- no engine, broken main mast,no toilet or shower, leaking topsides and a little below the waterline, but we fell in love with her and vowed to return her to a floating, sailing boat.

Over the next 13 years we started the renovation. The purchase came with a 3 cylinder Listard JP3 Diesel engine, which we lifted onboard, completely overhauled and installed. We removed the sole , cleared out the old concrete ballast and replaced with new concrete and iron “ pigs”, returned the sole, replaced the caboose roof, and much much more..  During this time we moved along the south coast of Spain and back to Gibraltar. We replaced the main mast with another which came from a burned out french vessel and we reworked the old main to replace the mizzen mast, which was an ex telegraph pole. All the electrics were renewed and contained ina false beam shelf which relays all around the boat.We replaced planks above the waterline, replaced much of the deck and 42 of the stanchions.

In 2005 we finally lifted her in Adra , SE Spain and began the major refit. Surprisingly she had very little rot but we decided to strip off the fibreglass which had been put on in the seventies as it had not been keyed to the hull properly and the fittings had not been removed, merely glassed over. Whilst in Adra we acquired a Gardner 6LX  which had been in an ex-trawler that we knew well, so we completely stripped and rebuilt it before removing the Listard and installing it in our engine room, thus increasing the power to 127hp. We installed a 6.5 kva diesel generator in the engine room, noisy but it works and overhauled the original steering gear.

We also retrieved a load of teak duckboards which were thrown out of a Spanish customs boat and were about to be burned!  Many hours of dismantling these and removing thousands of nails we had plenty of lovely teak which we used to refloor the caboose and for other jobs.

After stripping the hull and ensuring it was dry  we removed the caulking, prepared and epoxied softwood splines, then fared the hull, before reglassing, ensuring correct adhesion . We put 6 layers on the hull, 12 around the keel and around 20 on the bow. Also we glassed the deck, installed new water tanks and new stainless steel fuel tanks.

Once afloat,  in early 2008 we headed to Almerimar, in SE Spain to put on new gunwales  and  capping rail,new chain plates and rerigged both masts.

Finally we sailed to Gibraltar and the up the coast of Portugal and sSpain, crossing the Bay of Biscay to take part in The International Festival of the Sea, a four yearly event for traditional sailing vessels of all ages and sizes in Brest,Brittany, France. We continued on ,via Douarnenez( more festival), to Jersey in the Channel Islands.

We headed south and sailed to southern Portugal, where we wintered up the Rio Guadiana, the border between Portugal and Spain,and carried out more work, including preparing  installing and rigging the bowsprit ( which had been the flagpole in the Navy dockyard in Gibraltar during WW2) and making the bowsprit netting. Also we installed a new bulkhead in the hold and created the crew quarters.

In 2009 we sailed around the Mediterranean along the east Spanish coast, N Morocco, Majorca, Menorca, S France, Corsica,Sardinia, Sicily and wintered in Greece.Next Spring saw us sailing from Greece, via Sicily to Malta, thence on to Sardinia, Menorca,Majorca,Ibiza and mainland Spain and Portugal. We were given 2 pews from the oldest church in Gibraltar and have used the lovely wood onboard. We rescued a crushed sailing dinghy in Gibraltar, and completely rebuilt it, made a Gunter rig, so we had a lovely sailing dinghy complete with spinnaker, which doubled as our tender with outboard ( all of which is still onboard).

December 2010 we headed south down the coast of Africa(Morocco) to Lanzerote and Gran Canaria in the Canaries.                                                                                                                              Here we raised the central hatch using Gibraltar, the yachties go to bar and portholes from an RAF pinus. We explored most of the islands in 2011 and returned to Portugal via Madeira , Porto Santo, Morocco and S Spain in the Atlantic. We usually carried 2 motorbikes onboard which enabled us to see more of the places we sailed.

Between 2012 and 2017 we sailed between Portugal, Spain and Morocco, then began to prepare Pax for our trans- Atlantic adventure. We had continued to improve life onboard constantly, including fitting a wood burner, solar panels, and usual maintenance . We changed the mizzen rig from Bermudan to gaff and I was able to alter a lovely red sail from a Cornish fishing vessel to fit.

Preparing her for crossing the ocean involved plenty of work. More new solar panels, new bowsprit netting, rerigging main mast, new forestay, ratlines on both masts,installing new 10 man liferaft, Epirb,  making new strong 100% foresail, more berths below and tons more. So we finally got away on January 10th 2018 heading first to Gibraltar. A few adjustments including lengthening the main top gaff in case we needed to use the spare mainsail and we headed south to Lanzerote in the Canaries, then on to Mindelo, Sao Vincent in  Cape Verde islands and from there we took 21 days to sail to Barbados with 5 onboard. All went pretty smoothly if a little light on wind, we saved a Wilson’s storm petrel who knocked himself out on the rigging and panicked a little although were thrilled when a large sperm whale swam under the boat upside down a couple of times! For the remainder of 2018 we explored the southern Windwards and sadly lifted in November in Chagauramus , Trinidad so we could return to the UK to face medical issues and that was that.

We have visited many great places, met lots of wonderful people, had some brilliant crew and helpful, kind and generous folk whilst living a great lifestyle, but now it’s time hopefully for Pax Nostrum to carry on having adventures in someone else’s hands.

Now she lies in Chagauramus, Trinidad at Peakes Yacht Yard. Covid finally forced the previous owners to sell and I fell in love with the “old girl”so I thought I would give it a go!