Wildflower is a 44ft steel yacht. She’s named after a Tom Petty song and I think she’s beautiful.
Granted I did come along when she was looking her best. About 10 years ago Paddy was living in her while she was sans ceiling and floor. He had to balance on beams and duck under exposed wires. In contrast the Wildflower I know has a lovely wooden interior and all the mod cons, including microwave and internet.
I’ve been asked a lot of questions about her so figured the best way to do this would be Q and A format – if anyone has any other questions just let me know, I may have to forward the more technical ones on to Paddy though.
Q: (the first question asked by any female before stepping on the boat) Is there a toilet and does it work?
A: Yes – its a fancy electric toilet so you don’t need to pump it to flush it, it does however sound a little like a lawnmower chewing gravel when you flush it!
Q: Do you have hot water?
A: Yep – its heated by gas, so hot showers are not a problem (as long as there is enough water in the tanks!)
Q: What do you do for electricity?
A: The same thing as everyone else when we are at the marina. When we are out at sea we have a kick arse generator (built by Paddy) to do the job for us.
Q: What happens if you run out of fresh water at sea?
A: We make our own (technical details will have to be left to Paddy!)
Q: Don’t you get in eachother’s way in such a small space?
A: This is one of the many plus sides of being munchkin sized, it honestly isn’t an issue for me (and to be honest its not much smaller than my flat!)
Q: Yes – but living with someone on a boat and visiting someone on a boat are two very different things. Are you sure you will cope?
A: I live on the boat at the weekends and a couple of nights during the week and we’ve taken the boat away on trips together and we haven’t had any problems so I’m pretty confident we’ll be fine.
Q: So why don’t you just move onto the boat now then?
A: There is another man in my life – 6kgs of spoilt black feline that has travelled up and down the country with me over the past 7 years. He kinda got in first.
Q: What are you going to do with the cat when you go away?
A: Ollie is going into borstal with a lovely catlady who does longterm stays. I know it would be cheaper to leave him with a friend, but I’d worry. This way I definitely know he’ll be there when I get back.
Q: Why don’t you just take the cat with you? people have ships cats don’t they?
A: Cats are fine at sea if you start them off as kittens but they have very sensitive inner ears and an adult cat that is not used to a boat will just get horribly sick. Ollie has stayed on the boat in the marina though and has been fine – unfortunately his desire to go exploring loudly around the boat in the wee small hours of the morning had him dangerously close to taking swimming lessons, so I don’t think he’ll be invited back again!
Any other question hopefully will be answered by these photos:
Sleeping berth -
Ollie hanging out with Bilgey the ship's cat in the forward cabin Wildflower’s bottom
Main cabin/sleeping berth
