Kindred Spirit II - sailing around the UK, or trying to...

 

This is a blog about our little adventure. By 'adventure' I mean it has an uncertain outcome. Our aim is to sail round the United Kingdom. Perhaps you might join us virtually?

NOTE ON BLOG DATES: Spoiler alert, we made it round (most of) the UK and back to our starting point. We launched the boat on 13th May 2021 and set sail that day. We arrived back at our starting point on July 11th 2021. trip  Unfortunately Blogspot does not let me reverse the blog entries now that our trip is completed. So I have manually amended the publication dates of each blog post so that the story can now be read in the logical order, from start to finish. I have added the correct dates within the text of each blog, so just ignore the blogspot posted dates as they are meaningless. Otherwise I have not amended the original blog entries made during the journey. I did not manage to post every day due to exhaustion or lack of wifi.

Our boat, actually it is Mark’s boat, is a 30 foot long yacht. We will give a shout for the company that built her, back in 1993 in Essex, she is a ‘Hunter 30’, a well-proven sailing boat suitable for our trip. Our boat is called ‘Kindred Spirit II’ and Mark bought her a couple of years ago. Now just in case you are thinking that we are a couple of boomers setting out on a gin palace of a boat I should point out that the boat cost about £20K… twice as much as I have ever spent on a car.  However, having said that it is true that owning a sailing boat feels like setting light to £50 notes.  Companies that supply parts and equipment seem to imagine that you are a millionaire yacht owner and charge accordingly. There always seems to be something that needs fixing or replacing or adding to your boat, to make it keep looking good, working well and being safe.

Mark on board on 1st May 2021

Kindred Spirit is well named. In attempting to sail round the UK perhaps it is our last chance to do that whilst it is still a 'united' Kingdom? The term 'kindred' means members of your family, and at that level Mark and I are brothers, so that no small part of our adventure will be to live and sail in close proximity to each other and hope to get on well together. But 'kindred spirit' means 'a person whose interests or attitudes are similar to one's own' ( I googled it) so we might get more philosophical and adopt a big picture view of our adventure to ask: Are the people of these isles, are we, kindred spirit?

Mark and I have both got to that age when you get a bus pass. We have both been involved in adventure sports, Mark as a white water canoist and Pete as a mountaineer. About twenty years ago we both separately bought sailing dinghies. These were 16 foot 'Wayfarer' open sailing boats that have a reputation for being sea worthy. Mark sailed his beautifully maintained Wayfarer from his local Blackwater Sailing Club in Essex while Pete mainly sailed his knackered old dodgy patched together dinghy on Ullswater in the Lake District. But Pete had read about 'sail climb' adventures, these generally consist of famous hard and well-off or sponsored professional climbers sailing on a 40 foot ocean going sailing boat to Greenland or Antarctica and climbing a new route or previously unclimed summit. After a couple of sea trips, the limitations of Pete's dodgy dinghy soon became apparent but a new brotherly collaboration began, which involved Mark towing his dinghy up to the west coast of Scotland. We sailed to the isles of Muck, Egg and Rhum, walking up to their highest points. We sailed in to Coruisk on the back of the Isle of Sky's Black Cuillin Ridge and scrambled up the Dubhs Ridge. We sailed on what we called the 'Whisky Trail' to Jura, Islay and Colonsay and even published an article in the Wayfarer magazine. Our favourite trip was a circumnavigation of the Isle of Mull including a trip surfing across on big rolling breakers to Staffa. We had the famous island and its cave to ourselves that day. The next year we turned back on an attempt to circumnavigate the magic Island of Skye and decided we needed a bigger boat.

Both of us are still working but trying to be semi-retired. So having postponed the planned UK circumnavigation due to the pandemic in 2020 we are determined to go for it this year and have set aside May and June. Pete's plan, jump on the boat on 1st May and set sail, because Mark is keen, competent and semi-retired so will have the boat finely tuned and ready to go. As Robbie Burns might have said, the best laid schemes o' mice and men and lazy brothers gang aft a-gley (meaning, I think, do not always work out quite so neatly).

Unfortunately the boat is on dry land



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