They have done almost no sailing and have zero boat-building experience, but they have a dream.
And now a pair of first-time boat builders from Dunedin have a cute-as-a-button boat in need of a bit of work.
Freelance designer Charlotte Goodyear, 29, and zoologist Evelyn Virens, 38, recently bought Oslo, a late 1950s New Zealand-made, Norwegian-designed 6.4m wooden yacht on TradeMe, thinking it would be the perfect project to sink their teeth into.
A doer-upper, Oslo came with a history, some rust and a fair few holes.
"We didn’t really expect it to be this bad," Dr Virens said of the state of her new boat.
"It looks pretty nasty."
They discovered new holes on its side when they were waterblasting it for the first time and were not sure what they might find next.
"My biggest worry right now is that when we dig in, we’ll find the keel timbers have issues."
In good news, it made a trip down Otago Harbour with no problems on a solid single-cylinder diesel engine.
Ms Goodyear said she had always been interested in boats but it had been a bit of a pipe dream to own one.
"We’re definitely jumping into the deep end with this."
"We don’t have unlimited resources to do this but we’ll figure it out."
They were watching lots of boat restoration videos on YouTube and taking advice from boat builders around the Marina in Magnet St.
Ms Goodyear said it might take them two years.
She was hopeful they might be able to restore it to its former glory.
They wanted a boat restoration project rather than to buy a boat ready-made because it would make a better story, though the boat already had a few of those to its name.
One previous owner used it to run home-made rum from Bluff to Oban in the 1980s and its first owner sailed a regular run between Tauranga and Picton for many years.
They did not have any solid plans for what they were going to do once they were finished restoring it.
But they hoped even though it was a small boat it would be able to do ocean crossings because it was sturdy.
The next step in the project was finding a boat shed and moving Oslo into shelter before doing much more to it.
They did not want to risk losing its shape as they took it apart.
They planned to vlog their journey online and were open to suggestions from boat builders via email on oslo.sailboat@gmail.com
