Jimmy Cornell at the Cruising Association

Jimmy Cornell has had the impact on world cruising for which words like "legend" start being used. His World Cruising Routes is said to have sold 200,000 copies and is on Brian of Delos's Required Reading List.

He set up the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers which I did many years ago (totally fab) and a week ago gave a talk in the Cruising Association about his successful transit of the North-West passage.

However initial impressions were not of a hardened sea salt but a fussy man, complaining that the meal was being served before the talk not, as is usually the case, in the interval. "Its not right" he muttered, as knives and forks clattered on plates. Plus the lights were all wrong as was the microphone. He decided to wait until people had finished eating then began anyhow.

He started by describing his trip to Antarctica and Cape Horn plus his totally dream-worthy Exploration 45 foot aluminium yacht Aventura IV (above, which I so want).

Then it was off from London, heading out under the Tower Bridge which lifted in salute on the 31st of May 2014 for his first attempt at the NW passage. They sailed up to Orkney and headed west, as the southern tip of Greenland has almost the same latitude. Up the west coast then across to Baffin Island, polar bears and the first serious ice.

It turned out to be more than just serious, as 2014 turned out to be a bad year for ice and they had to turn back. Even so they almost got iced in, with Cornell's granddaughter, one of the crew, fearing they'd be stuck there for 10 months.

This year he tried again from west to east, which has the advantage that the ice tends to clear in that order and to cut a long story short was successful, sailing through to the Atlantic and then down to London, to head under Tower Bridge on the 18th of September.

There were some more interesting moments, such as how he admitted he did the cooking as he is fussy (his word this time) about the mess that others cause. He also admitted he'd become a sterner skipper. "Can't afford to be nice all the time" he said, not with ice around.

In the Q&A session one question was particularly interesting: what were his over-wintering plans?

Didn't have any, he said, which puzzled me. If I were heading into the NW passage where ice is unpredictable and risks of wintering, while low, are definitely not zero, I'd have a plan.

But it was a key to his character, namely his confidence in himself and his determination. He'd find something, he was sure: he was prepared to make mistakes but stubborn so able to find a solution. That, coupled with a Romanian fatalism "if its going to happen, it's going to happen".

"Don't always think of consequences, otherwise you'd do nothing" he said.

For a potter round the Solent, maybe, but a trip into the NW passage with your granddaughter?

Maybe the "hmm.." I'm mentally thinking now is why I've never sailed around the world once let alone three times, nor set up several hugely successful yachting rallies, let alone completed a NW passage.

Ming Ming II Talk at the Cruising Association

On Wednesday I managed to briefly escape work and headed east to the Cruising Association's HQ in London's Limehouse Basin for a talk by Roger Taylor about single handed high latitude sailing.

I've been wondering how to write up what he said given I'm still struggling work wise, but then the answer became clear.

In the first half of his talk he covered the voyages of the original Mingming - which he wrote up in two good books which I've already blogged about (for example, here)

In the second half of his talk (after an excellent dinner was served) he played the video of his voyages in Mingming 2 up to Bear Island and back via Jan Mayen - which you can watch for yourself (click above for sample).

To be honest I only re-watched for a few minutes but then got distracted by the latest update from S/v Delos:


Top tip for all sailing vloggers - this is the level of quality to aim for, with excellent shooting and editing.

I might even say Sweet!

Matt Rutherford's talk at the Cruising Association

Yesterday evening I headed down to the Cruising Association in Limehouse Basin to hear Matt Rutherford give a talk about his circumnavigation of the Americas - single handed in a 27' yacht.

And pretty riveting it was too - and funny. Matt is I guess just into his 30s and has an upbeat what you see is what you get attitude, and I wondered how much his voyage had changed him, maybe calmed him.

It's a long way to sail, though he was pretty nonchalant about it. After making it through the North West Passage, he said, he had to get home somehow to Annapolis and the Panama Canal costs money and he just had $40 on him so he might as well keep going round!

Naturally after last summer's sail to the Arctic Circle I was most interested in the bit between Newfoundland and Alaska and it didn't disappoint.

He too fogs, whales and dolphins as we did and he had no heater either, but then he also had ice bergs, big ones, as large as container ships, walls rearing out of the whiteness.

To make sure he didn't crash into them his watch system was 50 hours on 3 off, 50 hours on 6 off.

Now that is really tough.

But then as he described it, it felt like playing a video game, dodging those growlers, a video game where he had just the one life. He described how time seemed to change, so that 10 hours would pass like 10 minutes, and how his coping strategy was to do everything very slowly, in keeping with his brain and body's speed.

It clearly wasn't much fun when the gales blew through, but there times of calm when he could drift and not worry about a bit of bumping - or indeed running aground as most of the channels up there involve deep water apart from the Simpson Strait.

Then down through the Baring Strait with 20 foot waves and 50 knot winds, across the wide Pacific, at one point closer to New Zealand than Cape Horn, struggling with the doldrums, until finally reaching that most southern point where, surrounded by albatrosses, penguins and rainbows he saw this:

After the Horn he could turn north and face his most severe test yet.

One problem he had was things breaking and he didn't have spares. The water maker required a rendezvous off Newfoundland but when the engine starter motor failed he had to get a new handle delivered off Brazil.

All was going well until he realised he could see the beach, and on the beach were Brazilian girls.

It was tough, but as he pointed out, to achieve something as well as hard work you must also make sacrifices.

So very true, and when he finally sailed back into Chesapeake Bay, crossing his outbound track, it was a really great achievement.

The demographics of cruising associations

Recently I went down to Limehouse Basin (above) to visit the Cruising Association for a talk by Matt Rutherford on his solo non-stop circumnavigation of the Americas.

There was one thing that struck me quite strongly about that evening: how old the audience was.

I'm not youngster but I was almost certainly below the mean age of those there, and it was particularly noticeable given how young Matt was - or at least relatively.

And it raised a couple of questions:

• Was the audience representative of the CA in general?
• Have cruising associations always been for those in their "prime of life"? - maybe because yacht owning involves a degree of both wealth and experience.
• If not when was it that cruising associations involved more young people?
• Does it matter?
• If so how could they widen their appeal?

Book Review: Arthur Ransome under sail by Roger Wardale

Arthur Ransome's love of sailing can be read in every line of his Swallows and Amazon's series of books that went on to inspire many sailors.

In real life he spent a lot of his time afloat in a variety of boats, as described in this book. And there were quite a few of them, including Swallow, Racundra, Nancy Blackett, Lottie Blossom, Peter Duck and Selina King.

The voyages on Racundra he wrote up in two books, the first and third cruises of that yacht, which alas I discovered were all too boring.

This book has the advantages that a) it summarises those cruising recollections (i.e. its author, Roger Wardale, read those books so we don't have to) and b) it points out similarities between events in Arthur Ransome's life that might have been re-used in his stories.

For example:

• The safety in sailing offshore in Racundra was similar to John's predicament in We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea
• Ransome and Evgenia were helped to sail by Captain Sehmel, who was to become Peter Duck (both had sailed on the Thermopylae)
• Going ashore on deserted islands in the Baltics was a bit like Titty and Bill going ashore in Peter Duck
• The great frost of 1895, when Ransome was in the Lake District as a child, was re-imagined in Winter Holiday
• Ransome also met the Norwegian polar explorer Nansen while in Riga
• The yacht Goblin from We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea was a faithful copy of Ransome's Nancy Blackett
• Research for that book included a trip by Ransome over to Holland
• Sailing friends of Ransome on the East Coast had a yacht called Lapwing...which was included in Secret Water
• Ransome also explored The Naze aka the secret water when living at Pin Mill (which was the Swallows base for two stories)
• He also went sailing with friends on the Norfolk Broads, which were used in the stories of the Coots

And that's to say nothing of the countless connections with Ransome's life to the Lake District sailing stories.

I also learnt how Ransome was instrumental in forming the Cruising Association, where I've been for a couple of really interesting talks with good food.

The first half of the book was the best for me, the second had two flaws:

1. It didn't make so much sense to me to describe retrospective literary connections i.e. when Ransome's sailing reflected his books (rather than his books coming from his experiences)
2. Ransome kept on commissioning yachts and after a while it becomes yet another boat project

All in all, though, a very good read for anyone with an interest in finding out more about Arthur Ransome, the man behind some of our favourite children's books.

Note that Roger Wardale is a bit of a Ransome expert and there are two other books that might be of interest:

• In Search of Swallows and Amazons: Arthur Ransome's Lakeland (focusing on the Lake District, as described here)
• Arthur Ransom on the Broads (as reviewed here)

Updated: Racundra (as per here) or Recundra (as per front page)?

Boat Show People

Why go to boat shows? Why not just Google whatever it is you want to know or buy it on Amazon?

My answer is the list of some of the people I've met at Boat Shows:

• John Blake, author of The Sea Chart (above left)
• Bob Shepton, author of Addicted to Adventure (above right)
• Elaine Bunting, editor Yachting World
• Tom Cunliffe, author 
• Will Stirling, boat builder
• Sam Llewellyn, editor Maritime Quarterly
• Skip Novak, around the world sailor
• Stokey Woodall, sailor
• Roger Taylor, sailor of Mingming up to 80N
• Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were captured by pirates
• Geoff Holt, paraplegic sailor
• Peter Webb, sailed round Spiztbergen in an open boat
• Liza Copeland, author of the Just Cruising books 
• Sally Kettle, author of Sally's Odd as Sea rowing the Atlantic
• Hector Macdonald, author of The Storm Prophet
• Jo Rogers, one of the Sisterhood
• Jock Wishart, Arctic veteran 

Plus I've met up with old friends, and made some new ones with whom I've sailed with across the Channel and between Lisbon and Gibraltar.

For me the boat show isn't about things - boats, gear or even Guinness - its about people.

Each year the Boat Show seems to shrink a bit, become a bit smaller and the organisers must be wondering how to boost it, to make it relevant again.

I say focus on the people of sailing, the men and women who have stories to tell who we'd like to meet and hear from. Create a series of talks by writers and adventurers, with lectures and Q&A sessions.

This always so much interesting stuff going on - just think about what's in the news, with the Volvo, Extreme and America's Cup. There's clubs full of people worth hearing from - I had a great chat with someone at the Cruising Association stand.

That is something you can't get on the internet, something unique about being there in person, something to answer that question: why go to a boat show?

Jimmy Cornell talks about the North West Passage, again

The first of the talks at London on Water turned out to be one that I'd already seen and heard before at the Cruising Association 18 months ago, so check out the post for more details.

Two things stuck in my mind from that earlier presentation. Firstly, Cornell came across as a bit fussy, worrying about things not being right, from the lighting to the microphone to people eating away, and secondly that as skipper he said he couldn't "afford to be nice all the time" which sounded a bit ominous for the crew.

This talk didn't really add to this, though it wasn't helped by technical issues with the laptop and microphone, background noise from the bar of people chatting, the sound of rain on the tent and people eating too close to the table where Cornell had his books.

There was something appropriate about hearing this talk at St. Katharine Docks as Cornell's voyage started and ended by going through the nearby Tower Bridge.

London Boat Show 2017: Chris Eakin & A Race Too Far

One of my favourite haunts of the London Boat Show is the book shop where there opportunities to meet the authors, and this year was no exception.

First up was author and journalist Chris Eakin who's written a book called A Race Too Far about the 1968 Golden Globe Race which has also been made into a film, The Mercy, due to be released later this year.

Its a dramatic - and tragic - story and Chris's book tells the story not just of the race but what happened next to each competitor and their families. Full review to come once I've read it.

We had a brief chat about sailing - he sails a 34-foot Hallberg-Rassy and we ended up discussing high latitude sailing, where he has considerable experience, having done the NW passage with none other than Jimmy Cornell.

I mentioned the talk by Cornell I went to at the Cruising Association and how he mentioned he'd become a sterner skipper, saying he can't "afford to be nice all the time". At this Chris gave a wry smile - from what I gather it was a difficult voyage.

We also had a good chat about writing in general and life as a author.

I have quite a stack of books post-Christmas but this one must be high up the pile.

London OnWater 2017 at St Katharine Docks

This weekend there was an event called London OnWater 2017 at St Katharine Docks.

The blub on their web site called it "London’s No.1 On-Water Boat Show & Festival" but... well.. it wasn't that big to be honest. However I guess that technically it was accurate as the London Boat Show had zero boats actually on the quayside by the ExCel exhibition centre in January.

London OnWater was held in one of the St Katharine Docks and seemed almost as much about cars as boats:

One of the boats looked like something off a James Bond set, namely the Glider Yachts "sport limousine":

Apart from looking like a rocket ship apparently it can go like one too - this model can reach 56 knots and another in the range is rated as up to 96 knots!

I didn't ask the price as not really my market though I did wander off to the Oyster Yachts to have a little dream:

Then back to Tower Hill and the tube home.

So what did I think? Well I had an interesting couple of hours at London OnWater 2017 but I'm not quite sure where it fits in the boat show marketplace. I'm guessing that being located bang in the City means there was potential for boat makers to address the high end luxury market which isn't really my thing.

My favourite chats were with the Cruising Association and the London Corinthian Sailing Club, both of which I've been to in the past and should try to visit again.

Two super-yacht videos and a question

J-Class Bicentenary 2015 from J Class Association on Vimeo.

So I was watching the video above and had this thought.

It's a great video of its type, full of clips of beautiful Js racing along the Solent. But it's a very traditional view of sailing, jackets and ties on the lawn of an exclusive club, full of.... shall we say "seniors"? That hat at 03:47....

Was this sort of thing, I wondered, the best way to attract new-comers into sailing? Would it, rather, give the wrong impression: that there are barriers and that socialising isn't open and inclusive?

Then today I was surprised, not for the first time, by finding out that a non-sailing colleague knew all about S/V Delos, and others like them on YouTube, enjoying videos such as this one:



Go Brady and Josje!

The Delos crew are doing a fantastic job - great videos and sailing, with some sweet world cruising, very different from the profile of a traditional yachty.

And I wondered, have you too been surprised by discovering that someone you know who you didn't think was into sailing has enjoyed these videos?