A BOAT-BONKERS couple have spent the last five years splashing the cash on fixing up an abandoned 78ft superyacht with eBay bargains.
Janis and Blaine Carmena, an adventurous couple, embarked on the journey of building their huge dream home five years back. Their project kicked off after stumbling upon the vessel, covered in a tarp and decaying in Alaska.
Their dream home is a floating abode named Tangaroa, a 1969 aluminium trawler. Restoring it to its former glory has demanded an immense amount of effort, amounting to thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of pounds in expenses.
But the pair – who relied on some savvy eBay buys to help cut the costs – believe the superyacht is almost ready to take them across the globe.
Janis told The Sun: “We’re going to have a big bon-voyage party with our family and friends, then July 7 we are gone – and we’re never coming back.
“We’re gonna be on the water until we’re so old that we can’t move around anymore.”
Currently, the family resides permanently on a boat close to Victoria, situated on the Canadian west coast. Alongside them are their 17-year-old daughter Izzy and a rescue dog named Maggie from Mexico.
But the whole family isn’t quite on board with boat life as their 21-year-old son Josh has decided to stay on land and lives nearby with family.
The giant superyacht has taken up most of their time in recent years with the first few months after finding it being the biggest challenge.
It was riddled with termites and tethered to the sea bed with trails of muscles meaning it was almost impossible to move and not very pleasant to explore.
Blaine described it as “three out of ten at best”.
As Janis recalled: “The termite wings and poop falling out from holes underneath the deck were quite a surprise.”
The “beautiful” £17,000 teak deck had to be replaced almost instantly due to the battered floor and decaying material.
Every inch of paint even had to be painstakingly scrubbed off by hand.
Much of the extra gear needed to kit out the vessel came from endless nights of the duo scouring online shopping sites such as eBay and Alibaba.
They bagged themselves countless bargains and soon managed to fix up the yacht‘s interior and exterior.
They later swapped out the engines for a state-of-the-art electric set-up making the yacht an impressive yet smooth speed out on the open water.
Blaine and Janis started documenting all their hard restoration work on YouTube as the views quickly started to rack up.
Their biggest video has over 200,000 views with hundreds of admiring watchers leaving comments of support.
“We really didn’t expect that reaction,” Blaine said.
Even before living full-time on their floating home the couple have always been around boats.
As kids each of them grew up loving sailing and heading out on the water.
Their relationship even started onboard a superyacht as they met whilst working with Blaine being an engineer and Janis a first mate.
In total, they have both breezed past 120,000 sea miles throughout their life so they bought plenty of nautical know-how to the ambitious project.
Both moved on from the boating industry for decades but they finally made the decision to move back and rediscover their sea legs.
There’s something about being around the water that makes me feel safe
Janis Carmena
Janis had pushed for the life change after suffering from PTSD from her 20 years in the police.
She said: “After 20 years of policing, I got diagnosed with PTSD – and I knew I needed to be back on the water.
“There’s something about being around the water that makes me feel safe.”
They initially wanted a boat that was around 50ft, considerably smaller than Tangaroa – but were charmed by the wrapped up vessel when they went to view her.
“She needed love, and she has all these beautiful lines and history – and she was just kind of forgotten up there in Alaska,” Janis added.
“It pulls at your heartstrings when you see a boat like this.”
Both consider themselves “aluminium snobs” so the matching yacht perfectly encapsulated their desires.
They lodged an offer for less than half of the CA$500 (£278) asking price and were laughed off by the broker.
But, after some negotiation, they soon found themselves the proud owners of the 78ft mega vessel.
Two big problems still remained however, as they were 700 miles away from their home on the freezing west coast of Alaska.
Covid was also starting to massively impact on the world with many places starting to shut down.
Blaine remembers becoming nervous over if they would be able to transport the boat back home in time but after three days the happy couple and their dream home-to-be returned to Canada.
In December 2019, the Tangaroa didn’t even have any heating on board as they took her for its first proper spin.
Janis said: “Blaine had only given it a short sea trial, so it was totally unknown to us.
“I ordered some heaters and foul weather gear up there for us and we just said ‘let’s get this boat ready.’”
We’re gonna be on the water until we’re so old that we can’t move around anymore
Janis Carmena
Not surprisingly, there were some teething issues on their maiden voyage.
Dodgy engine ventilation created a vacuum inside – “that had some interesting effects,” according to Blaine.
“We had little rivers of salt water running through the boat, and water getting sucked in through every crack we could find.”
Despite the on-board chaos, Janis remembers the journey down from Alaska as “the most beautiful we have ever done” – an impressive accolade for people who have sailed all over the world.
The idea for their indefinite trip out on sea came after they got the boat home and realised it was possible.
Janis has had their route planned out for some time: “Our plan is here to Alaska for winter and then across the Aleutians, Siberia and Japan.
“And then we’re thinking down through Micronesia and circumnavigate Australia.
“We don’t want to do the Mediterranean, so we’re going to come up the Northwest Passage and get over to Norway, Finland, Sweden, Scotland.”
