Living on a 40' motor boat 

Iain grew up around boats, with his dad being in the Royal Navy and also Iain spending time on the Dorset Police Marine Section where he got qualified to RYA Yachtmaster Examiner level. In 2009, Iain then moved to live on a 40’ motor boat and loved it, ‘I love that feeling of entering a new harbour where I have never been before and I dreamt of taking that boat off cruising the Med once I retired’.

Buying their first boat 

After meeting his wife Kate in 2012, and after a lot of boat shopping, they bought a Najad 391, built in 1997. ‘As far as we know she was launched with the name “Intrepid Bear” from new and has predominantly always been based on the south coast of the UK. My boats had always been named after my daughter but as this boat belongs to both Kate and I we didn’t have any names we really wanted to call her and we liked the name “Intrepid Bear” so we decided to stay with it rather than rename her.’

Waiting to retire 

After buying Intrepid Bear in 2019, Iain and Kate spent some time sailing her out of Poole while waiting to retire from the police and go cruising full time. With the boat came a Raymarine E120 plotter and a separate radar down at the chart table. Iain soon upgraded to current Raymarine navigation equipment.

The start of an adventure 

In 2021 they set sail from their home marina and sailed towards the med, cruising the South Coast UK and Isles of Scilly, before heading down the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal. For 2022, their aim was Paxos, Greece, and then start to head home, back to the UK. In 2023, Iain and Kate are still slowly making their way back home, and are currently in the Balearic Islands, heading towards Almeria in Spain.

Iain and Kate have many future plans for Intrepid Bear, starting by returning to the UK in June 2024, and giving the boat some much needed TLC after 3 years of cruising abroad. They are looking at cruising Northern Europe in the summers of 2025, but as all sailors know, plans change!

A brand they know and trust 

In the early 2000’s, Iain fitted a full Raymarine system to the Police Launch, including 3 E120 plotters, and found them intuitive to use, and since then has always been a fan of Raymarine equipment. Whey Iain came to upgrade Intrepid Bears electronics, there was only one choice, and Kate trusted his judgement.

We asked Iain what the best thing about being a Raymarine ambassador is ‘I guess the best thing is being able to upgrade our system to state of the art electronics. We now have so much more important information at our fingertips which just makes the whole cruising experience both safer and more enjoyable. There is also the help and advice that Ambassadors can get through contact with you to put us in touch with anyone we need to such as when we were having the radar issue last year. It is also really nice to have been able to help and advise people as well as offer the chance to win an Axiom chartplotter. That was a really nice thing to be able to do’.