Liquidstate

This year, our annual big sailing holiday was to the Channel Isles. After destinations such as Orkney in 2005 and Iceland last year - well, I didn’t think it would be too big a job. After all, the crew have had plenty experience of watches, night sailing, strong weather. Little did we know that St Helier would prove to be a bit more of a challenge than we originally planned.

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The Scottish Three Peaks Race is for teams of hill runners and sailors over a long weekend around the beautiful West Coast of Scotland. The Race starts in Oban with a short hill run, then a sail to Salen on Mull, a wee jog over Ben More, another sail to Craighouse on Jura, run the Paps, sail to Arran, run Goat Fell, then sail home to Troon. Sounds easy huh? The sailing course of 160 nautical miles includes the strong tides and overfalls of the Corryvreckan and the Mull of Kintyre whilst the runners cover 60 miles and 11,500 ft of climbing. Read the rest of this entry »

After a great holiday, it was eventually time to head home - but not before we made just one last stop. Of course, our stop as in yet another country We left Reykjavik just after dinner on Friday night, and within ten minutes of leaving the harbour, we spotted a massive shark, which we move past incredibly slowly so we could get a good look. After that, we set our sails and headed towards our next destination; Thorshavn, Faroe Isles. Read the rest of this entry »

As the Iceland trip was our most technically complex trip to date, it was agreed that rather than our usual “outbound” and “return” crews, we would help each other. So, for the delivery trip, Robert got the help of Jen, Russ, and me.  Likewise, on the return trip, Robert flew into Reykjavik just before we were to due to set sail.

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Robert has always wanted to sail to St Kilda, so its seemed like a good basis for a sailing trip. But, unfortunately, St Kilda is only accessible in certain weather conditions. We sat in the pub one night thinking of how we could organise the trip, and what we would do if St Kilda wasn’t a goer. After all, its a long way to go to just come back again. It was round about then that Jen produced perhaps the most famous of our boat quotes … “well, if we cant get into St Kilda, then we’re already half way to Iceland”.

A plan was born … its just a shame nobody thought to check a map first!

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