Starting in earnest in 2013 with the purchase of Ngahue III, an HR43, firm dates were set in stone rather than in sand to retire and go blue-water sailing by the end of 2017. Ngahue III had participated in a World ARC and was perfectly equipped to go around again - all we had to do was just modernise her a little. Nevertheless, in 2015 we decided it would be a good thing to go up a size or two in the Hallberg-Rassy model range.

The first reason was that there were going to be two of us participating in this plan - Laura and myself, and that I wanted a more stable and larger platform that was able to hold the kind of gear that two people take with them on a circumnavigation-in-comfort these days. And we both wanted a boat that was as 'seakindly' as possible in her movements, as one of us has a more tender stomach than the other... Whilst the HR43 certainly was a stable platform, by the time we put our (electric) bikes, sail wardrobe and other things on board, we'd used up a lot of the space available. On a trip back from the Orkneys, in pretty stormy winds, the HR43 had a tendency to bounce around a lot more than I wished for Laura's comfort.

A second reason to go up a size was that we became truly committed to long-term cruising and to living aboard full-time. Jeremy Mason of Transworld Yachts, the U.K. Hallberg-Rassy dealer, had in fact pointed this out to me at some point when preparing my HR37 for ocean sailing: live-aboards do indeed need more space. It was a wise piece of advice, even if lost on me at the time. Fortunately, I remembered it again when looking for a bigger boat... We now needed to see our boat as our new house and home (Jeremy's advice), and we felt that extra space was needed on board to have those things with you that keep you busy and happy when you are a long way away from home and land.

Moving up one size in Hallberg-Rassy's range at the time took us to the HR48 (or its predecessor the HR46, which we kind of overlooked at the time). The HR 48 then (in 2015/16) was a relatively modern design and therefore commanded a premium price; we felt that we would be paying a lot of money for only 5 extra feet in boat length. We thought about this a lot and decided that the Hallberg-Rassy 53 therefore seemed an altogether better choice. The design is older, and in our eyes also more elegant. Because of this older design, the economic outlay needed to acquire a Hallberg-Rassy 53 was considerably less than what was required for e.g. an HR48. Then again, buying parts for this bigger and heavier boat costs more as well!! Nevertheless, for a smaller initial investment you do get 10 extra feet (and double the weight)!! She also has tons of storage space!!! Of course an older boat also needs extra care, (lots of extra care actually, as we have found out since) money and attention to ring and keep her up to date. But on balance, it seemed better to go for the 53. Previously, I had looked also at the Hallberg-Rassy 49, a truly ocean-going "four-wheel drive" kind of yacht - as an alternative. But unfortunately the number of good HR49s available when we were looking for our next boat was absolutely zilch. With a D/L of 268 (by my calculations - others only come to 264!), the HR53 is a border-line case of being either a moderately heavy, or a heavily moderate displacement vessel... I prefer to refer to her as moderately heavy. But however you look at her, she's a solid piece of kit, as they say.

During the summer of 2015 we started looking around in earnest for a suitable Hallberg-Rassy 53. For good measure we also checked out a few HR48s, and kept our eyes open for any HR49 hanging around (just in case). Much as we find each and every Hallberg-Rassy an incredibly beautiful boat, after seeing a couple of Hallberg-Rassies 53, we were clearly in love with the design and felt that the HR53, the "Queen at that Time" (as HR describes her in their Story about HR book, definitely was 'our' kind of boat.

In July 2015, we found a really beautiful HR53, called Seaquest, up for sale with Nova Yachting of Bruinisse in The Netherlands. Nova is the official Dutch Hallberg-Rassy dealer. We spent several weekends looking her over and discussing whether we should or shouldn't go for her. Alas, when we finally made up our minds, we were told by Nova that she had been claimed by a lucky couple of Dutch people just 20 hours before we had communicated our decision to buy Seaquest. We were absolutely shattered and utterly devastated (see mouse)! The Dutch buyers wanted to test sail the boat, and secretly we hoped they would hate the experience. Of course they didn't and Seaquest was not to be ours. We were a bit sad to see Seaquest (in the meantime she had been given another name) was put up for sale again towards the end of 2018! And again around 2020 and again in 2022! In July 2019 we by chance saw the former owner of Seaquest who was admiring our boat in Bruinisse... a small world; he was thinking of buying another boat for long distance sailing (since then, he bought a friend's HR48)! Seaquest has been sold and resold again since. She would have had a better life under our management; but alas it is not the boat that decides on its next owner...

We bravely accepted the sale of Seaquest from under our nose and understood that some solid organising was required. We put Ngahue III up for sale so that we would have money readily available when we found our ideal HR53, and started travelling around Europe to view all available HR53s (plus a couple of HR48s)! It was all quite exciting, even if heavy on our carbon footprint... After 3 months, we finally managed to identify another suitable HR53... She turned out to be a 1995 HR53 with hull number 19, lying in one of the heated factory halls of the Knierim Yachtbuilding company in Kiel (where they custom-build super German quality racing yachts - our 53 looked pitifully small in their boat hall, standing next to a couple of 85 and 95-foot Knierim yachts!!). Having spent most of her sailing life in the Baltic, "Tabaluga" (for this was her name at the time) was solid and well-kept, even if pretty "bare" from a blue-water sailing point of view. Unfortunately, previous owners had merrily sanded down her decks to get beautiful brown wood - and this had reduced the walking deck to significantly less than 10mm instead of the normal 12mm (see special page on teak decks). By comparison, over the first 10 years of our ownership and multiple ocean crossings and sailing in the tropics, we've lost less than 1mm of teak deck. Such a pity of the lost wood before we could lay our grubby paws on the future Ngahue IV!!! At some time the previous owners had also painted a lot of the wood on and around the decks in some kind of dark brown varnish, which took years to peel off in all sorts of "un-useful" places, such as under grab handles - the remaining slivers of varnish really cut into our hands!! We were sure that with the necessary investments, we felt that HR53/19 fit the bill and could be easily converted into the ocean-sailing boat that we wanted.

The essentials of the future Ngahue IV (hull, deck & propulsion) were sound, as confirmed by an extensive survey understaken in two steps by Mr Uwe Baykowski of Kiel. Our immediate attention was directed towards the boat's rigging (much of it the original standing rigging from 1995 - an absolute no-no for our insurers to allow us to go from Kiel to Holland/Belgium without replacing the whole lot) and her electronics (some of that also original from 1995). See the Technical page-Inside on Ngahue IV to see how we have "Furuno-ised" whole swathes of the boat's electronics and how the Reckmann company renewed our standing rigging! We have since "un-Furuno-ised" Ngahue IV and changed all the electronics to Raymarine. The reason for ths is also explained in the Technical pages! Pictured here is the layout of our HR53 - it also shows off the "traditional" (that is to say traditional for 1990s designs) lines of her hull shape!

In November 2017, we joined the 2017-ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) and from Saint Lucia in the Caribbean hoped to continue with a circumnavigation that should take us, from early 2018 onwards, across the Pacific, to New Zealand, and back to the Atlantic, via the Indian Ocean (2019), etc. etc. To see how this adventure panned out, we refer you to the "We're off" pages on this site! For details on our ARC preparations, please refer to the special "Preparing for the ARC" page... I've also included a page with lessons learned... And you'll see how we didn't manage to complete our circumnavigation on our first attempt; or even our second attempt... But in the back of our minds the circumnavigation plans continue to brood!

When we took possession of Ngahue IV at the end of April 2016, she seemed a huge boat for just the two of us. We were completely awe-struck by the size and weight of our new boat. Worryingly though, after a month or two she seemed perfectly manageable; and dare I say that by the time we put her up into winter storage in September 2016 (there was a lot of work to be done), she seemed decidedly on the petite and small side (admittedly our neighbour in Nieuwpoort, Fovea, has a modern Beneteau Oceanis 55 design and his boat, although only inches longer than ours, appears huge when moored next to us). Taking the 1000kg mast down in September 2016 was, however, a salutary experience, and a useful reminder of the size and weight of fittings on a boat this size!