Episode 2: The What and the Why

 

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 available during the summer ... about a month. That ruled out kayaking or swimming round, paddling a bathtub, or even sailing a 'normal' monohull. 

 

I happened to mention that I had always fancied sailing around Britain in a Unicorn and that maybe he should follow me around on his bike. This idea caught on but was quickly quashed after reading of Stick Daring's experiment in this regard where he thrashed a cyclist out of sight in a Laser between Eastbourne and Pevensey. Presumably the situation would only be worse with a cat.

 

In tandem with this, another discussion was being had at home. I'll skip the details, but the upshot was that a solo trip around Britain was firmly taken off the table, but approval was given for a double-handed trip instead. 

 

Pete was obviously invited to tag along...however he was forced to concede that he doesn't fold in the middle quite so well nowadays as he used to and he didn't think his body would allow him all the way round in a catamaran. So, we were back to Plan A and doing something involving a boat and a bike and I needed to find a crew....oh, and a two-man boat that had a chance of getting around in the time we had. 

 

Many lunch hours later, the plan has passed through dozens of iterations and we eventually settled on Pete using his bike, but supplementing it with his senior citizens rail card in order to keep up with me and a crew. We would hopefully get some great sailing and he would get some cracking cycling, both on and off road. 

 

Fortunately Pole and the Tornado have filled the gaps in the plan just nicely. We also decided that the trip needed a bit more focus than 'just' getting round, so we also decided to put in an additional target: that we would have a boat/bike meet-up together for a photo-op on each of Britain's four cardinal headlands. 

 

Eastbourne is the obvious choice of start and finish point. Non-stop was ruled out as being just silly though.. We reckoned we'd rather take a bit of time and enjoy the experience and if we didnt make it all the way round, well so be it. Our plan is to do the trip in a series of day sails, camping on the trampoline. However, we will manage the boat more like a kind of keelboat and look for harbours, anchorages and marinas etc for our overnights. We think that 20ft of Tornado plus luggage will be a bit much for us to be dragging up and down beaches any more than we absolutely have to. Of course, this might mean we will be spending the odd night out if we find ourselves stuck between suitable stopping points, so navigation lights are on the list of mods to do this winter.

 

That's the plan. Not sure yet whether we will go clockwise or anticlockwise, but we now think we have a boat and a crew that has a decent chance of completing the trip in the time that we have. 'All' we have to do now is fit the mods, do the repairs, get Boris' OK and we're off!

 

We'll have a look at some of the technical issues in Episode 3