WILDLING has been sold! The new owner lives in France, so WILDLING will be staying in the Med. We wish the new owner many safe and happy miles of sailing on this exceptional catamaran!
We would like to sincerely thank the team at Grand Large Services, led by Pierre Delhomeau for managing the sale of WILDLING. GLS is a sister company of Outremer Yachting and handles the post-warranty servicing and management of Outremer boats. Pierre managed the entire sales process for us and took excellent care of WILDLING throughout. I was in and out of hospital and physical therapy during most of this, and needed someone I could completely trust to handle the sale. I can’t speak highly enough of Pierre and the GLS team, they are super professional, kept me informed at every step, and went above and beyond to take care of the highly complex process of selling WILDLING. I never imagined selling a boat of this size could be a stress free process, thank you all!
On the personal front, my shoulder is coming along nicely. I’m now at the point where I am beginning to use it again, but I’m still 6 months away from full recovery. It’s a slow and painful process, and requires more patience than I was born with, but I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
We are building a new sailboat to replace WILDLING. Robin and I decided to downsize our next boat, because most of our sailing will be just the two of us, with our kids away at university. We want a boat that is safe, comfortable, capable of crossing oceans, but still fast and able to be sailed single-handed by either of us. After much discussion and research of potential boats, we have chosen an Outremer 4X.
Our 4X is named PUFFIN, after the little sea birds that we love. She is currently under construction at the Outremer factory in La Grande Motte, and will be launched in August this year. We have booked passage on a yacht transport ship to bring PUFFIN from Palma to Brisbane.
We have been working closely with the Outremer team to customize PUFFIN to our needs. The basic 4X design is excellent, so we have focused on some additional weight saving options to make her faster, and a number of sail handling changes to make her easier to sail solo. We have also been able to incorporate some of the construction techniques from the Gunboat line into PUFFIN, which is a great benefit of the same company owning both Outremer and Gunboat and having both construction factories co-located in France.
I will detail all of this and more in our new website and blog. I’ll post a link to the new website as soon as it’s ready. In the meantime, here are some preview photos of PUFFIN under construction.
Glad to hear you’re on the road to recovery.
Great news Doug! Here`s hoping for a full recovery !
Hello Doug. I’m glad to hear that you are doing well and getting better. I’m also glad to hear that you have decided to buy a new Outremer and am looking forward to your new blog. Cheers.
Congratulation on all three major events : Your health, selling our current boat and the new one. Pierre was the seller’s agent for our purchase, great experience and continues to provide us with excellent support. The pictures above on Puffin’s hull are very interesting. Our O49 has the sanitation hose vent behind the daggerboard case, I cannot figure out how to get access for cleaning and replacing the hose. Certainly a question for Outremer when we are at the Cup this June. Will you be there too?
Great news and wish you luck on both the remaining part of the recovery as well as the new boat. Out of interest what was your rational to go for the 4X and not the 51 or Balance 526??
Hi Magnus, neither of the boats you mentioned met our performance goals.
That is a good reason 😉 I look forward to read your very nice/educational blogs which I hope you continue for Puffin. I keep your comment in mind when we go forward with our shortlist of boats for our upcoming trip.
Good to hear things are going well on your shoulder recovery.
Tamara and I saw the 5-X S’Arenella after the ARC. She is a beautiful boat. It was a lot of fun to sail against her, very tempting for us to upgrade from Sea Child, I do think she is more boat then we need for mostly just the two of us. I understand the downsizing.
We saw and sailed against a brand new 4-X in Spain and the ARC. She is a very nice quick boat. Should be easy for the two of you to handle.
Congratulations, I hope one day Puffin and Sea Child can meet on the water.
Great you are doing better, even if it is slower than a person with an entrepreneurial spirit can stand. I know very well myself.
Hope INVIA and Puffin will meet somewhere!
Congratulations. Hope the shoulder continues to heal.
Woo hoo! So glad you’re working on a new boat.
Here we go again, with a new boat adventure. I’ll sadly miss Wildling, a wonderful boat.
Good to hear that you’re back in action.
FYI, they are using pictures from wildling (and the sale description?) to sell another Outremer 5x (boatname: Give me five).
https://www.yachtworld.de/boats/2015/outremer-5x-3537033/
Congratulations on your new boat. I can’t wait to meet Puffin.
Love Gill xx
For sure! We will be sailing down to Sydney once she arrives in Australia, so you can join us for some cruising on the harbour!