Yachting Monthly - November 2015

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