We are Tom and Alex Reed, wandering around the world by boat with our son James who is 7 and home-schooled. Boat ownership for us started in July 2015 when we bought the Oyster 56 sailboat “El Mundo” in Lymington, England. After a comprehensive refit (new standing rigging, spars resprayed, Lithium batteries, new electronics etc.), we set off across the Atlantic (Canaries to St Lucia) with the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) in November 2015, enjoying near perfect conditions for the 17 day passage.
After a season exploring the Caribbean from Grenada up to the BVIs, we then took the opportunity to join the second Oyster World Rally, starting with 28 other Oysters from Antigua in January 2017 and taking in Panama, the Galapagos, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus archipelago, the Society Islands, Palmerston Atoll, Tonga and Fiji on our way to New Zealand where we arrived in October 2017.
Having made it from the UK to New Zealand, Alex (who is very prone to seasickness and not keen on big mid-ocean squalls) put her foot down. If she was going to continue with the boating life, it would have to be on something bigger, more comfortable, that did not heel but that could still cruise the world’s oceans in safety. After much research, we found the perfect solution – a Nordhavn trawler.
Fortuitously, we managed to get in touch with Kathy Clark who, with her husband Bradley, had spent the last 7 years cruising the US East Coast and the Bahamas in their Nordhavn 72 “Shear Madness”. By strange coincidence, they had previously spent time cruising the Pacific on their Oyster 56! After a brief visit to see them in Washington DC and a bit of negotiation, Kathy and Bradley agreed to sell their boat to us and we became the proud owners of Nordhavn 72-02 in January 2018.
After a brief trip back to New Zealand (by plane this time!) to sell El Mundo, we returned to Morehead City, North Carolina to start learning about our new floating home, now renamed “Alchemy” (chosen primarily because of our son’s obsession with chemistry and Harry Potter).
The Voyages of MV Alchemy 