Bye, bye Yuana!
Manuela and Markus have arrived in the Caribbean with their children onboard their HR39 "Yuana". Here, they are celebrating their 20th anniversary at Jost van Dyke (JVD, White Bay), British Virgin Islands, with "Pain Killers" in their glasses.
During the last days of 2013 I read a book called “Sabbatical at Sea”. It was about a Swedish family sailing away from the winter and to the Caribbean. It was a book I had bought for Christmas of 2013 and it didn’t take many days to finish it shortly thereafter.
I had no idea to which degree this little Christmas present would change my entire life! Even before I had finished the book, my own Atlantic Circuit hat formed in my head and had become a dream of myself.
The incubation period of this virus had taken max two days. I had been completely affected with this new disease. During the first days of 2014 I started the planning. Manuela and I joined Reginasailing and Leon in 2016 from Ireland to Scotland and shortly thereafter I found our own Hallberg-Rassy, the HR39 Yuana. 2016 we were tried our own first night sail from Holland to England!
In the summer of 2017 we set sail for real and Yuana carried us over the Atlantic all the way to the Caribbean and finally back to Europe again. Our Hallberg-Rassy became our home, our floating hamlet and the centre of the universe. „Chum, gömmer hai!“ (Swiss for “Let’s go home”) meant, that we wished to return to Yuana.
Now the year is just about to become 2019. Exactly 5 years after the day I began dreaming. We have just sold Yuana, so that at least she may continue our joint dream to continue sailing the seas, while our family will draw back ashore in the Swiss mountains.
Oh, what a great time we have had on Yuana! Dear Yuana, you carried us to the most astonishing and beautiful Caribbean bays and to places you would never get otherwise. You have been our safe home, irrespectively if we were at anchor and on the high oceans. We will now let you go, Yuana. The pain is significant and it hurts.
We are so happy for our time we had together and wish you all the best for your future, always favourable winds and a safe heaven.
Bye, bye, Juana!
The HR39 Yuana at the famous Nelson's Dockyard in Antigua, Caribbean.
See Yuana's homepage here.
Manuela & Markus Feldmann, Switzerland, first sailing Leg 6-2015 Dublin – Oban on Regina Laska, then buying their own HR39 sailing to the Caribbean and back with their two children.