Why did we choose Giselle? We weren’t expecting to. Mary saw an advert in the Cruising Association magazine for charts of the world along the route we planned. We bought them from Pete and Gay Kite and collected from their new home in the South of France. While there, we looked at their Van de Stadt Madeira 44 Yacht which was up for sale. The rest, as they say, is history.

We were planning to go around the world in our 34ft X332. I am confident that it would have handled the ocean voyages but it would have been uncomfortable at anchor and there wouldn’t have been much space for visitors. Much smaller boats have made it. In fact the founder of the often considered best of the wind steering system, John Adam, sailed from England to Cuba in a 5.2 meter Leisure 17. The story of how, exhausted after days of Storms, he ran aground and was arrested by the Cuban military appeared in the press all around the world. He was held for weeks, and it was during this captivity that he finally decided to set up the Windpilot Company (opens in new window). Giselle has one of their Pacific Plus models.

My mother gave me the book by Beth Leonard of her trip around the world with her partner, Evans. Following Seas was being thrown out by her local library. After their trip they sold their glass fibre Shannon 37 and built a Van de Stadt Samoa 47 in Aluminium. Looking at the Van de Stadt web site (opens in a new window) I was very impressed with the mast height – only just able to go under the bridge over to the Isle of Skye. More research made me more impressed. Going to visit the Van de Stadt design house just outside Amsterdam was the final brick or should I say plank in the building a longing for one of these excellent boats. Giselle was built of Steel by Bay Class Yachts in Kent and was fitted out in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex by Williams & Hazleton.