Nic Preller

I am passionate about Yachts and Sailing. I have been sailing since I was eleven years old. When I was at boarding school, in Queenstown (Queens College), our Hostel Master used to take us out to Bongola Dam where there was sailing most weekends and regular regattas.

I would hang around the sailors who were rigging their yachts in the hope that one of them would give me a ride. I guess this must have been a bit irritating for some of them but I did offer to help with their dolly when they launched their boats into the water.

Sometimes, one kind sailor would ask me to crew for them and then I got the ride I was looking for. While sailing with them, they would show me the ropes and soon I learned to sail Lasers, Fireballs and Sprogs.

A Dentist who had a beautiful daughter who my brother dated, allowed my brother and I to sail his Paper Tiger. There was a photographer who had a Hobie Cat and my brother and I sailed with him too, my brother skippering because he was older and wiser than me.

My first boat was a Hobie 14 which I sailed at Rustfontein Dam. My brother Douglas is also a keen sailor and he first bought the Hobie Cat and then I later bought it from him.

There was someone selling a Pirate keel boat at the Gariep Dam and so I sold my Hobie Cat in favour of the keel boat. Unfortunately the sale went to another buyer and I never got around to buying another boat after that.

After 23 years of no sailing, married life and raising children, I bought a Hobie 16 and sailed it off the coast at Walvis Bay. Towed it inland and sailed on a small dam for awhile and sold it, 2011.

I have spied a nice yacht which Wifey and I both like. Gemini 105Mc is a catamaran which we would like to use to go cruising. This may well be our next new home.