Restored Snapdragon 23 yacht - free prize draw

We’re giving one lucky winner the opportunity to win the PBO Project Boat Hantu Biru, complete with everything we’ve fitted to her during the restoration, including her engine, instruments and sails.

Restored PBO Project Boat Hantu Biru

There’s still time to get your name in for Practical Boat Owner magazine’s biggest ever prize draw – a giveaway of our fully restored project boat Hantu Biru.

After nearly four years of restoration, during which the PBO team have sanded, scraped, repaired, refinished or replaced every inch of the boat and her fittings, it’s time for our beloved Snapdragon 23 to move on.

The competition, which can be entered online at www.pbo.co.uk/winhantubiru or via the entry forms in the latest issues of PBO, will be closing at midnight on Sunday 17 January.

There’s still one more chance to view the yacht, at the London Boat Show, which is taking place from 8-17 January at ExCeL, London.

Hantu Biru joined the PBO team in late 2011, when we rescued her from a Dorset fish farm after winning her for £510 on an eBay auction.

She was in a poor state, with flaking paint, a seized engine, UV-damaged gel coat and weeds growing in her rotten cockpit floor, but we thought she showed potential. Closer inspection showed that she’d had an interesting life, having been the pride and joy of army Major Geoffrey Dennis and following him through postings to Singapore and Kiel before returning to the UK. But those days were long gone, and the closest she had been to water for 20 years was the stagnant rain that had collected in her bilge.

So began a long struggle to restore her to seaworthy condition. It hasn’t been easy but we’re delighted with the result and would argue, albeit with some bias, that she’s now the smartest Snapdragon 23 afloat.

PBO Editor David Pugh and Deputy Editor Ben Meakins led the restoration project and did the majority of the work, with help on the larger jobs from the rest of the PBO team.

Ben said: ‘We’ve been out in all weathers for the past four years to get her to the state she’s in now and it’s great to see her back in order.

‘We sailed her across the Channel back in the summer and she’ll make a great cruising boat for someone.’

He added: ‘It’s not too late to get your hands on Hantu Biru. Boats of this kind rarely come on the market in this condition, and in this case it would be hard to argue with the price!’

All of us at PBO wish the winner fair winds and sunlit sails with Hantu Biru. All we ask is that you look after her.

Enter online at: www.pbo.co.uk/winhantubiru