Silver Foam moored at Upper East Ferry Cork

Those of us who go to sea early in life quiet often for some reason or other leave or give up a life at sea and after a brief period of time whether it be years or months later in life. They always have a hankering to return. Sooner or later at some point in life unforeseen circumstances will dictate at some stage and fate will intervene whereby such circumstances caused my life to fall apart. In my situation I was in my early fifties made a reasonable living part time turning my hand to anything that would bring in a fair and disent income.

Thhey say when bad events happen it usually comes in threes. Which in my case that what happened to me in the year 2000.In the later half of that year I had a car accident then I lost my job and shortly after that my Mother died suddenly. As I was living in the family home and my Mother died intestate meaning that her estate had to be sold and the proceeds from the sale divided up among me and my siblings which meant that I had to leave my home which led to court proceedings being brought against me to evict me from my home. The court proceedings lasted eight years. Causing me to find another place to live. Leaving me in such a state of misery and very low esteem.     Within a short while I was going down the road of drink and depression. I soon realised this was getting me nowhere only to the point of no return. One night in a local bar drowning my sorrows as usual I said to myself enough is an enough. I'm not doing this crap anymore.

So pulled myself together and thought what's the best thing to do with my life and started thinking about what my life was like many  years ago when I was at sea. It was a time when I was young, happy and green about the ears. Little did I realise that life was so good back then. So I thought right there and then I made a decision to by a boat. With that being said I decided to make it the most important goal in my life. Even though I had no money to buy a boat at the time I decided to make this goal a reality. I had a few books on the sea, boat building etc; that I bought years ago. So I started to build a small library of books that had everthing to do with the sea. When my share from the sale of the family home came through. i now was in a position to buy a boat So I trawled the internet, went to visit boat yards, looking for the right boat for me. I eventually picked a boat up in the county of Galway. In the tiny habour of Aranmore on the West Coast of Ireland. The boat I set my heart was a cruiser/racer 30 feet long named Silver Foam.. It spent it's entire life of forty years racing every year until it was retired. I knew there that it was the boat for me. I did not realise at the time but a lot of small repairs and repairs that needed to be corrected and cheap parts repaced. I made an agreement with the owner to purchase and view the boat at Galway Sailing Club where it was kept. So just before Christmas I boarded the bus in Cork and headed for Aranmore in the county of Galway. When I arived in Aranmore I booked into the Aranmore Hotel. The following morning I contacted the owner and aranged to meet him in the foyay of the hotel at eleven in the morning. I waited in the foyay until  a man wearinring a sailing jacket with the name Silver Foam writtin on his jacket. We spent at the Galway yacht  Club viewing the boat which I was quiet happy with what I saw she was in very good condition for a racing yacht. An agreement was made to purchase the boat and arangements were made to sail down to Cork on April the following year.