We live in the Solent region of Hampshire in England, having moved to the area from Worcestershire in the late 1980's.
Richard and Julie met through Wyre Mill Club, a sailing club on the River Avon at Wyre Piddle, just north of Pershore in Worcestershire
Julie crewed for her father sailing the family Wayfarer "Yellow Bunting", whilst Richard crewed in a number of boats including vintage Merlin Rockets, Enterprises, Larks and National 12's before owning and racing a Laser.
Richard moved to Hampshire in 1988 with Julie joining him a year or so later and married in the spring 1991 in Julie's home parish of Cookley, Kidderminster.
We sailed the Wayfarer on the Solent at Hill Head Sailing Club for a number of years, but for one reason or another slowly drifted away from the boating scene.
Meanwhile Julie's Father (John Cook) had moved from Worcestershire to Hampshire and was keen to get back on the sea and started to look seriously for a suitable boat in the summer of 1998.
In the winter of 1998 John was to be offered three boats in need of restoration. The first boat, a Seamew, required excessive restoration and was given to a shipwright for further work. The second, a Westerly 22 'Windrush', John gave to us and has been extensively restored by John, Richard and Julie and is documented in this website. The third, a Caravel 'Wina II' is John's current restoration project and is documented in John's web site - www.wina2.net
As usual we try to pursue other activities. 2001 and the first few months of 2002 were taken up with DIY. We had decided to extend our home and embarked on the ambitious project of increasing the size of the house by around 70%. Once the builders moved out we were left with the task of interior decorating during the winter months and landscaping during the spring. Whilst never quite finishing, we have broadly speaking achieved the desired effects.
We used our Westerly 22 "Windrush" around the Solent, however we decided that it was time to move upwards to a larger boat. We have a mooring designated for 26ft so we felt it was time to sell "Windrush". In September 2004 she was sold to Mr and Mrs Robert of North Wales, and we set about finding a suitable replacement. Our search was to be a short one, we found a Westerly Griffon at Lymington and purchased her. As part of the re-registering of her in our names we renamed her Paxi Moon and she is moored on the River Hamble.
Richard's car is his pride and joy is his limited edition Audi TT quattro Sport, a car reckoned to be the ultimate production mk1 Audi TT, while Julie drives a A3 Cabriolet. Richard is the South Coast regional rep for the TT Owners Club
Julie's brother David lives in South East Asia, so we try to get out to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on a regular basis.