When we first decided to buy a boat that would become our permanent home, the world had just gone into lockdown and international travel became impossible.

After a four-month wait in our small apartment in Scotland, we grabbed the first opportunity we could to book one-way tickets to the Caribbean and never looked back. We had our hearts set on a Leopard 47, a catamaran that checked all the critical boxes and provided a reliable base from which we could build a solid bluewater cruising vessel.

Most of these production catamarans were designed for the charter market and our budget meant we were looking at models from 2005 with very simple or non-existent systems onboard. In fact, we lived on one for two months in St. Vincent & the Grenadines and delivered it to Grenada (along with its newer sister, a Leopard 46) as part of our purchase deal with the owner who was stuck in the Dominican Republic at the time.

 Unfortunately, things fell through at the last minute in quite a dramatic fashion (it really is worth watching the first few episodes on our YouTube channel as it’s a story most people wouldn’t believe!) and we were left homeless. On an island. 4000 miles from home. During Covid. 

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