Then in Greece, Trevor and Judy both topped up their sailing knowledge with practical courses. To help learn the boat and the systems, they took on two crew, a captain and mate/chef who had previously worked on Intrepid for five years and knew the boat inside out. In spring the following year, the Hills left for the Mediterranean and sailed to Palma and onwards to Greece for the summer.
Naval actio madagascar refit upgrade#
In late 2018 Intrepid returned to Southampton for a major refit and electronics upgrade to bring the boat back to mint condition. “Our kids were in university and old enough to be on their own and we had a break in the action. “I sent my cheque in as soon as I’d bought the boat,” he says. “In some ways it makes sailing even more challenging, but I like the purity of that kind of sailing,” he says.Īlmost immediately, Hill entered the 2022-23 Oyster World Rally. The boat was also set up for performance sailing, with a slab reefed mainsail, a carbon rig and carbon sails, and Hill liked that too. It is big enough to be luxurious for crew and guests, and it’s a showpiece in that sense, but also rugged enough for any kind of sailing we would want to do.” “We wanted enough room to have crew if we wished but a boat that we could sail ourselves, and this was the largest boat we felt we could legitimately sail on our own. “I think a lot of people would say that a 72-footer is a lot of boat for two people,” Hill comments, “but what it boils down to is it’s 70% systems and engineering, and 30% sailing – that is what you end up doing. Hill chartered the boat for two family holidays in Croatia and later the BVIs and when Hill partially retired in 2018, he negotiated to buy her. He arranged to take a look at the boat and decided it would eventually be the ideal yacht for his plans. He looked at all the boats for sale and happened to see Intrepid during a business trip to Australia. Now very serious about buying a suitable boat, Hill honed in on Oysters. But I wasn’t ready to go, and we missed the first two rallies and vowed not to miss the third.” “It was also intriguing that there would be like-minded people coming from different walks of life and countries of origin all with similar issues, experiencing the same adventure at the same time. I thought it was a great idea to have similar boats all of the same brand, for a whole variety of reasons including how capable they are and the similarity of engineering. It looked fabulous and I told Judy ‘You won’t believe it, but these guys are organising a world rally.’ I watched the rally from the beginning, and it was one of the things that was very attractive about buying an Oyster. Hill signed up to the Oyster Yachts mailing list and when he read that the company would be running its first round the world rally, Hill says: “That’s when it clicked. What I wanted is to go wherever I wanted and have comfort and safety and range – and do it in style”. I had been in the engine room for many years and learned all sorts of rules in the Navy and I knew a bit about what it takes to be at sea for a long time, from a capacity and engineering perspective, and from a seaworthiness perspective. But the more I dug in, the more I realised the engineering systems, the thoughtfulness of the design was really important to me. First of all, they are incredibly beautiful, the aesthetics amazing. “I would read magazines and the more I learned about Oyster Yachts the more I could see that was the right kind of boat for my kind of dream. In the latter years of running his business, and still with the ambition of owning an Oyster in mind, Hill began tracking all the boats for sale. “I had done a lot of miles in ships and so I knew it was something I wanted to do,” he explains. “During all his days in the Navy, Hill had harboured an ambition to go sailing across oceans. “Then,” he says, “I went in search of more arid climates water reuse in the south-west USA, went to Phoenix in2000 and started a water utility company designed to use less water.
Naval actio madagascar refit serial#
When Hill retired from the Navy in 1994, he became a serial entrepreneur specialising in water and wastewater treatment. He had been in charge of putting the first reverse osmosis plants on board ships, a nascent technology yet to be used in the sailing world. After college, he joined the Royal Canadian Navy as a marine systems engineer and spent many years deployed at sea, ending as deputy engineering officer on a warship during the first Gulf War. He grew up in Vancouver and sailed throughout his childhood with his father and brothers.
In a way, the sea was in Trevor Hill’s blood.
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