OUR FLOATING HOLIDAY HOME

Why spend your precious summer break in one place when you can witness a different horizon each day from a spacious, family-friendly motorboat? James and Francesca Leaver’s 59ft Van Der Valk offers all this and more

- James Leaver

Sailing has always been a big part of my life and now my wife, Francesca, and our two children, Archie and Lucinda, have embraced boating too. We live in Surrey but spend so much time travelling to and from our sailing club in Chichester harbour that we wanted to establish an Itchenor base of our own. The children were getting into junior Mirror racing and we all wanted to spend more time on the water and with the many friends we’ve made in the area.

Most people in this situation would have considered looking for a second home in the area but with steep property prices in Itchenor, I wondered whether we could buy a boat to use as our holiday home instead. I’d always dreamed of one day owning a proper cruising boat and this seemed like an opportunity to make that dream come true. With my sailing background I initially thought our base should be a sailing yacht. But would the children like it? And would it be warm and comfortable enough for the whole family after coming in wet and cold from a day’s racing? It needed to be a cosy home-from-home as well as a sound cruising vessel.