Happy Days - A 46-catamaran for a large family

We love to adventure together as a family. Kris and I were high school sweethearts, we were married young at 20 & 21 and started a family in 2009. We have owned various boats over the years. Then came a little upgrade but with all the mod-cons. Our 26ft Wakalina. She was lovely! Maybe it’s because the kids were growing so fast and its was getting tight sleeping onboard or maybe it’s because we dreamed of sailing further and for longer: whatever the case we were somewhat destined for a larger boat. We sold the family home, to some I’m sure it looked like ‘sell home, buy yacht’. However, this wasn’t really the case. We just had itchy feet and were keen to mix things up; and perhaps challenge a few social norms at the same time. We sadly said goodbye to Wakalina. We happened upon that boat right on our own doorstep here on the Gold Coast. A 51ft monohull which became our new home. We started sailing in and around the Gold Coast then we decided to stretch her legs and went North. We were ready for our first ocean crossing. We headed offshore to New Caledonia. While in Fiji, we hopped on the Leopard Owner’s Group on Facebook and posted that they were ISO of Leopard 46. The main catalyst for switching over to a cat was that we needed to get a bigger tender. The kids keep getting bigger, and our oldest just turned 12, so we thought a bit more space and a bit of privacy would be good. When a Leopard 46 turned up in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, we hired someone to survey the boat. It was a risky call buying boat halfway around the world, sight unseen. It was the design we were after; it didn’t matter where in the world the boat was located. Twenty-seven pieces of luggage and five countries later, we found ourselves in Mexico on the Sea of Cortés.