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Sunset in Burnham Yacht Harbour
Ellie and Ben aboard Rum Punch having safely delivered her from Portland Marina to Burnham Yacht Harbour
Sunsets in the marina

Welcome to Sailing Rum Punch. We are Ben and Ellie and together we have bought a 38ft sail-boat with big plans to build our dream floating home and navigate the world with her alongside.

Now, how did we come to the decision to go against the traditions of buying a house, being tied down with a mortgage etc and embarking on an adventure that could take us AND our home all over the world?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Let's take a few steps back...

As a young kid, sailing with his dad every chance he could, Ben dreamed of buying a sailboat one day and living on her. As the years went on, he went to Uni to study Stage Management and found himself touring the world and growing up in the world of theatre. A similar story with me (Ellie). I also went to Uni to study Stage Management - it wasn't until we met, we found out we went to the same drama school, only a few years apart. We were both (separately) jumping from rented flat to rented flat and from show to show. There was a time Ben found himself in a position to settle down, and say goodbye to that ultimate dream live-aboard life, but life is life and things can change. It was the end of 2019 and a small show, that you might have heard of, in the West End brought us together. That show was School of Rock. With similar ways of life, the familiarity of constantly moving around and mutual dreams to travel the world, I think we both just knew.

2020 brought the world a terrible year and we found ourselves cooped up in a London flat, twiddling our thumbs and watching endless Youtube sailing channels. That year brought a new perspective not just to us but to a lot of people, and being freelancers in the theatre industry, we were hit hard with a sudden closing of shows and loss of jobs. Not something anyone had planned for. After what we thought would only be a three week holiday and ended up turning into a whole year, being the proactive people we were, we were bored and restless. Ben took an opportunity that arose to complete his Competent Crew and started his Day Skipper course. This turned into hours of scrolling on Apollo Duck and Yachtworld, fantasising about different models of boats we could live on and discussing budgets etc. The idea of living minimally was relatively routine to us, constantly packing and repacking suitcases to take on tour with us, living out of whatever we could fit in the car. The absolute necessities. It seemed like the lifestyle would fit perfectly for us. We could travel and explore, conquer the sea AND the land, and our jobs would be able to work around this. At least that's how the cogs in our brains turned as we romanced. The reality comes with a lot of balancing, juggling and an extreme amount of hard work, but we were determined to get there.

Flash forward a year to 2021 - we were both touring the UK with a show called Bat out of Hell and having spent the last year saving every penny we could, we started to seriously search for the perfect boat to make our own. Well, the rest is history.

We finally found her. Our very own 1972 Contest 38 yacht.

We are sharing our DIY refit amongst the crazy chaotic on-the-go life we lead with whomever would like to tune in and with the intention of living a minimalistic and adventurous lifestyle. We've documented every second we can, so scroll it a little lower and embark on our journey with us from the very beginning and let's see where we end up!

Feel free to read even further into how we came to purchase Rum Punch by heading to The Full Story. More ramblings in the making, such as why we picked the name...

Now...bring me the horizon

- Captain Jack Sparrow

7

475

240

Items of clothes ruined so far

Screws used in the refit

Litres of water bailed

LET'S GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING WITH SOME INTRODUCTIONS...

We're both really excited to share with you all the full in detail, gritty, hard work we've been putting in. We still have a lot of work to do, but how about checking out Ep 0, our short story of who we are and how we came to buy our lovely home-to-be! And then keep watching as new episodes will be landing every two weeks, on Thursdays at 6pm! So why not click that subscribe button and that little alert button to make sure you don't miss an episode and join us on a journey to make a traditional sail boat into our modern day floating home.
You never know, you might be inspired to do the same...!

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@sailingrumpunch

Learn HOW to SAIL | Day TWO  #howto #competentcrew #sailing

Learn HOW to SAIL | Day TWO #howto #competentcrew #sailing

Join Ellie on her 5 day competent crew course with British Offshore Sailing School! DAY TWO! A short series following my course to becoming competent aboard a sailing yacht! DAY TWO. You’re in the UK, you say?!!!! We could have been in the med this week with the utterly ridiculous weather we were given. Tip: always where sun cream, that sun is strong ☀️ I sadly lost Ben’s favourite RNLI cap whilst at the helm when it blew straight off my head :( today was a full day of bright sun and moderate breezes, leaving at 8am and arriving at Buckler’s Hard around 4:30pm where we then got the tender out and laughed hysterically for the next half an hour 😅 Trust me, Faye, Cally & I were in fits 🤣 Bring on Day 3!!! Follow for more ⛵️ -- FOLLOW OUR REFIT FROM THE BEGINNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0HQWyr8Ak Episode 0 introduces us to all you lovely watchers out there and will give you a little insight to our lives around our decision to buy and refit a sailing boat! SUPPORT US: If you fancy supporting our little project and help even slightly towards creating our dream home, how about buying us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sailingrumpunch FOLLOW: Give us a follow on Instagram for more live updates: Insta | TikTok | FB | https://www.instagram.com/sailingrumpunch READ FURTHER: As we slowly build our content and get further into the design, we want to build our website for somewhere to read more about projects we’re doing, the design and how that is coming along, more facts about Rum Punch etc. Head to www.sailingrumpunch.com to read on
Learn HOW to SAIL | Day ONE

Learn HOW to SAIL | Day ONE

Join Ellie on her 5 day competent crew course with British Offshore Sailing School! DAY ONE! A short series following my course to becoming competent aboard a sailing yacht! DAY ONE. I couldn’t be more grateful for such a fab week, the weather was on point, our skipper Gary was a legend, my co-crew mates were utterly fabulous, @fayecornhill @callyevans_24_ Julia. Onboard a gorgeous Sigma 38 sailing yacht for 5 days, we covered 117 miles, 4 hours of night sailing and consumed a whole load of biscuits. An unforgettable week of learning, learning, learning. It’s definitely got me even more excited about having Rum Punch ready! Now, when is an acceptable amount of time to pass before I book onto my Day Skipper?! Follow for more ⛵️ -- FOLLOW OUR REFIT FROM THE BEGINNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0HQWyr8Ak Episode 0 introduces us to all you lovely watchers out there and will give you a little insight to our lives around our decision to buy and refit a sailing boat! SUPPORT US: If you fancy supporting our little project and help even slightly towards creating our dream home, how about buying us a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/sailingrumpunch FOLLOW: Give us a follow on Instagram for more live updates: Insta | TikTok | FB: sailingrumpunch READ FURTHER: As we slowly build our content and get further into the design, we want to build our website for somewhere to read more about projects we’re doing, the design and how that is coming along, more facts about Rum Punch etc. Head to www.sailingrumpunch.com to read on
Ep 35 - Do we SHUT DOWN our CHANNEL? Real Life Talks

Ep 35 - Do we SHUT DOWN our CHANNEL? Real Life Talks

We get down to real life talks in this episode as well as a big shout out to our boat neighbours Jim and Antonia who have been with us and helped us pretty much the whole way! This ones for you :) E&B xx -- FOLLOW OUR REFIT FROM THE BEGINNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0HQWyr8Ak Episode 0 introduces us to all you lovely watchers out there and will give you a little insight to our lives around our decision to buy and refit a sailing boat! HELP TO KEEP US GOING: If you fancy supporting our little project and help even slightly towards creating our dream home, how about buying us a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/sailingrumpunch OR click on the QR code whenever it pops up! FOLLOW: Give us a follow on Instagram for more live updates: TikTok/FB/Insta - sailingrumpunch READ FURTHER: As we slowly build our content and get further into the design, we want to build our website for somewhere to read more about projects we’re doing, the design and how that is coming along, more facts about Rum Punch etc. Head to www.sailingrumpunch.com to read on MUSIC CREDITS: Music by Epidemic Sound Music by Benjamin Tissot | www.bensound.com Sunny | License code: GXIZPJVS5X8U37XE Jazz Comedy | License code: CAZIR7OW0H2JT274 ART CREDITS: SRP Logo - Raj Rai @the_._art_._life raj@rajrai.co BINGE WATCH Jump onto the binge watch party and watch all of our episodes so far from buying and delivering our 38ft sailing boat all the way through to where we are now. Find Two Years of SRP and watch our progress so far!
Ep 33 | If we can’t stand the HEAT…

Ep 33 | If we can’t stand the HEAT…

We've hit June in our boat refit timeline and we're still plodding along. This week Ellie's still recovering and not ready to climb aboard and get stuck in, so she's off fabric shopping: The first step in learning how to upholster our own sofa cushions, whilst Ben progresses further with the galley, nav area and woodburning stove! Thank you for your support so far :) E&B xx -- FOLLOW OUR REFIT FROM THE BEGINNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0HQWyr8Ak Episode 0 introduces us to all you lovely watchers out there and will give you a little insight to our lives around our decision to buy and refit a sailing boat! *BINGE WATCH 2 YEARS OF SRP* If you want an insight into what our channels about - watch our two year anniversary episode of buying Rum Punch - 2 YEARS IN TEN MINUTES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijmaL15gzLI SUPPORT US: If you fancy supporting our little project and help even slightly towards creating our dream home, how about buying us a coffee: Scan the QR code on our Ep or follow the link to WWW.BUYMEACOFFEE.COM/SAILINGRUMPUNCH SUBSCRIBE/COMMENT/FOLLOW: Give us a follow for more live updates: Insta / TikTok / FB: sailingrumpunch READ FURTHER: As we slowly build our content and get further into the design, we want to build our website for somewhere to read more about projects we’re doing, the design and how that is coming along, more facts about Rum Punch etc. Head to www.sailingrumpunch.com to read on :) MUSIC CREDITS: Music by Epidemic Sound Music by Benjamin Tissot | www.bensound.com Sunny | License code: AE3PTKCFIGCNBRCR Jazz Comedy | License code: YUBRHJBSOHLDVQZ0 ART CREDITS: SRP Logo - Raj Rai @the_._art_._life raj@rajrai.co

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