Tornado Round Britain

 Episode 5:  Right, so I have been forced by Brian (he thinks he is captain for some reason) to write something about the beams that hold the hulls apart, support the mast and the front edge of the trampoline!    He dumped them on me right at the beginning of lockdown (just when I thought I could have a nice quiet sabbatical.) so that I could not get bored. They were looking like they needed some attention, and we were aware of a welded repair to the front beam on one side that needed checking to see if it would be strong enough for the trip. In my gusto I drilled out every rivet in the front beam and completely stripped it – discovering on the way that this beam has had a welded repair to both sides about 750mm in from the ends. Also, the dolphin striker preload tube that locates just under the mast had snapped off inside the beam. (Man, am I glad we decided to strip the beam right down!)                  ...

 Episode 4:   Being separated from the boat and the workshop during lockdown has been a real frustration. But Pole has his in-house garage and has braved the cold to get stuck into some pretty fancy engineering on the two beams - I'll let him tell you all about those in Episode 5.   For me, the challenge has been to find jobs that can be done in the spare room. One such job has been sorting out the boat's power supply.   This particular task began with considerations about how we would navigate and communicate. In the past whenever I've done long ish trips in open boats, I've gone for the low-tech route and used paper charts. This didnt seem particularly practical for a tornado though and we fairly quickly decided that the electronic route would be the way to go.    Nav equipment wont be the fancy purpose built stuff from people like Raymarine. Instead we'll be doing it the cheap and cheerful way using tablets, mobile phones and two of the many navigation ...

Episode 3:   Something different for E3.   All being well, my favourite Vendee Globe skipper will be finishing later today and will doubtless be considering her future employment prospects.   She has obviously been busy over the last few weeks and hasn't been taking my calls, but with her safely back this afternoon I'll finally be able to get things organised. The upshot is: Pole ..... you're sacked!   I just think the trip will go so much better with a sailing partner who is clearly much more talented than you .... on so, so many levels ....   https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/22099/clarisse-cremer-set-to-finish-12th-first-woman-and-break-race-record?fbclid=IwAR3O7g2oMw23wt3BUnZZnZbctciRAh2WIXtsuxy3SHZMTjunAsuQJFm27tc

  Episode 2: I thought for Episode 2 I'd have a quick look at where we are going and how we are planning on doing it ... and why.   Unusually, it seems, the whole idea for our trip started a long way from a pub, in a lunchtime discussion at work between me and my colleague Pete Mitchell about his plans for doing something interesting during the summer. Pete is primarily a cyclist and hiker but he is a sailor too, having spent a good many years sailing a development class where the rules permit the fitting (and firing) of guns and sea-slug missiles.    Having wasted many a lunchtime yarning about interesting places to go and interesting things to do we decided it was high time we did something together (as long as our respective management committees approved whatever venture we came up with). Both of us fancied the idea of doing a round of Britain in some way, but both of us also knew that whatever we did, it would have to fit into the amount of leave we had availab...

  Episode 1: I'm not normally one for creating posts on Facebook (or anywhere else for that matter) - preferring usually to heckle from the sidelines - but I thought it would be a good idea to have a go at documenting the preparations for our planned Round Great Britain attempt later this year and, hopefully the trip itself.   So, for those who don't know, the plan is that my old college mate Pole Voisey and I are hoping to get an equally tired-looking Tornado catamaran around the UK mainland this summer. We are not planning to break any records and intend to go round in a series of day-sails, camping on board the generously-sized trampoline.   Obviously there are a lot of reasons why this ambition may not be realised, not least of which is the 'current unprecedented ongoing pandemic situation', let alone issues of weather and physical frailty of both man and boat. But, being stubborn old fools, the two of us are working on the assumption that Boris will be letting u...