We had 60-day visas for Thailand, a rare thing as most cruisers only get 30 days, but were destined not to use them and are now back in Malaysia after just a month around Phuket. But we will start this tale at the beginning:

While we were still in Indonesia in October we saw that a well know cruising couple were putting their boat up for sale in Malaysia.  We had never seriously thought about changing from Serenity but had talked about things we would like in a boat if we were buying again and this boat seemed to tick all the boxes. We decided that if it was still for sale when we got back to Malaysia we would have a look.  To cut a long story short, by that time it was under contract, but the seed had been sown and when we were in Langkawi before Christmas we looked at a number of boats that were on the market. Many were in a dreadful state - this can be a bit of a graveyard as people realise the champagne sailing of the Pacific is behind them. Just one caught our interest but we thought it was over priced given some of the repairs that would be required.  We put the thoughts of change to the back of our minds and sailed to Thailand.

But the thoughts wouldn’t go away.  We made an offer and came to agreement with the current owners and a date was set for mid-February for an out of water survey, hence our early return to Langkawi. That survey is now complete, the owner, who flew in from Canada to deal with the process, has made some repairs and yesterday she was launched from the boatyard where she has been sat for the last year.  We have the on-water survey and sea trials on Saturday and unless anything major and unexpected comes up then she will be ours in early March.  Our beautiful Serenity will be on the market probably on Friday.

So what has persuaded us to abandon our much loved Moody 376?  Meikyo is a Norseman 447 so she is 45 ft long compared with Serenity’s 38 ft making her faster and giving us more space.  This will make it easier to take crew on board either if anyone wants to visit us, or if we want extra hands for the Indian Ocean crossing.  The Norseman 447 is designed by a well regarded American designer, Bob Perry, has somewhat better vital statistics as an oceangoing yacht than the Moody 376, and for those who followed our blogs as we sailed round Borneo last year, is the same as Kaihanu whose sailing ability we admired.  She has cutter rig, which means she can carry two sails forward giving greater flexibility, and she has davits for her dinghy. Davits are a framework at the back of the boat on which you can carry the dinghy and its engine out of the water when underway.  On Serenity we have to remove the engine and hoist the dinghy onto the deck if we are travelling any distance between anchorages which has meant that, if we were only stopping overnight somewhere, it would be too much effort to launch the dinghy and visit ashore.

Dealing with buying a boat in a foreign country has been an interesting experience. The process is probably more thorough than in the UK,  but with no knowledge of Malaysian contract law we have felt a bit at a loss at times.  The sale is priced in US$, so we have been watching exchange rates hoping to change money at a favourable time.  We have decided to price the sale of Serenity in GBP, to take the exchange risk out of the process for us.

Once we have ownership of Meikyo we will probably sail to Pangkor to deal with the work she needs, leaving Serenity in a Marina in Langkawi where the broker can show her to potential buyers.  We will remain around Malaysia and Thailand while we get Meikyo ready for long passages and get to know her.

If you want to see what we are buying you can find the sales listing here: https://www.syslangkawi.com/norseman447,

and if you want to see what Serenity looks like, or know someone who might want to buy her, she will also be for sale with syslangkawi.

Travel blogs will resume in due course, but in the meantime here are a few photos from our return to Malaysia:

Our first day from Chalong to Langkawi was a 16 mile windward passge to the island of Phi Phi Don.  The wind was on the strong side so we got out our working jib, which is hoisted up a removable inner forestay, and Serenity showed her paces as we had a great sail.  The Phi Phi islands are tourist hotspots (part of the film 'The Beach' was filmed here) and it was busy and noisy in our uncomfortable anchorage.