HOME WATERS
34 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015
Rose and Jeff Snoxell spent several
years living and working at anchor
as they cruised around the UK.
Bob Aylott discovers the high
and low tides of their adventure
Anchoring
around
Britain
CHART: MAXINE HEATH
I
’ll come with you,’ said Rose.
‘On two conditions...’ Jeff Snoxell
couldn’t believe his luck. His
girlfriend, fresh back from her
studies in America, had not only
agreed to marry him – she’d also accepted
that a yacht, rather than a house, would be
their matrimonial home.
In Rose’s absence Jeff, 43, a freelance
web designer, had got himself seriously
hooked on sailing. He’d completed an
RYA Day Skipper Theory course, bought
himself a 26ft Westerly Centaur and
started dreaming about sailing around
Britain to look for the perfect place to live
aboard. Here was the chance to actually do
it. ‘She wanted a trial period of one year,’
he tells me with a smile. ‘And a bigger boat
for her shoes.’
It had been a steep learning curve for
Jeff. ‘I was sailing singlehanded, and felt
START &
FINISH
River Deben
Crinan Canal
Strangford Lough
0 100nm
Plymouth
Falmouth
Poole
Lyme
Regis
Eastbourne
Brighton
Dover
Brightlingsea
Queenborough
Lowestoft
Fort William
Troon
Lochranza
Oban
Stranraer
Ballywater
Milford Haven
Padstow
Holy
Malin Island
Head
Isle of
Man
Orkney
Islands
Bristol Channel
ENGLISH CHANNEL
IRISH
SEA
Cape
Wrath
NORTH
SEA
WALES
ENGLAND
SCOTLAND
N. IRELAND
REPUBLIC OF
IRELAND
London
Whitby
Newcastle
Belfast
Dublin
Portland
Land’s Bill
End
Isle of
Wight
The Needles
Isles of
Scilly
Western
Isles
Brixham
River
Medway
River
Thames
St Katharine
Docks
Scarborough
Hartlepool
Loch Ness
Kerrera
Ailsa
Craig
Ben Nevis
Inverness
Lossiemouth Whitehills
Easdale
Dundee
Peterhead
terrifi ed every time I cast off,’ he says. ‘I’m
a self-taught sailor who nervously learned
from my mistakes.’ He was confi dent,
however, that he could earn money en
route. ‘I invested in a laptop and a dongle
for an internet connection and discovered
I could work from the boat as easily as I
could work from home.’
They moved to Plymouth Yacht Haven,
sold the Centaur and replaced her with a
31ft bilge-keel Westerly Tempest named
Isabella. ‘The extra space was a luxury,’ he
continued. ‘She had a classic layout with a
vee-berth in the forepeak and an aft cabin,
a separate heads compartment and a large
cockpit locker.’
The original plan was to live in marinas,
despite the substantial cost of short-stay
visitors’ berths. ‘We were worried about
how to sort out banks, addresses, doctors,
dentists and all the everyday things people
on land take for granted,’ he said. ‘But
friends suggested we could sail around the
country and anchor, mostly for free. It was
as if the penny had suddenly dropped.
I wasn’t an anchoring expert, but I knew
that I could do it with practice.’
Isabella came with a CQR anchor, but
even with a small current and in light
winds Jeff noticed she was prone to
dragging. ‘I dropped it again and again,
but the same thing happened,’ he said.
‘We changed to a 15kg Rocna, which
made everything possible. Since then I’ve
anchored hundreds of times and never
dragged, even in extreme conditions.’
Jeff confesses that in the early days
he’d worry all the time, going round and
Jeff and Rose get
married in Whitby
Rose helms through
Plymouth Sound at the
start of the adventure
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ROSE AND JEFF SNOXELL