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About the Long Sail Under
The Long Sail Under is a story that starts with two old friends (so as to avoid ambiguity, it’s the friendship that’s old, not the characters involved, not that we’re ageist of course) engaging in slightly non-sober bar chat. Both, increasingly bored with their London lives, longed for an escape. Whilst philosophising over the meaning of life (though ardent fans of Doulgas Adams they agreed that ‘42′ was less than satisfactory an answer) and talking about future plans, one announced that he had plans to emigrate to Australia, and the crazy thought of sailing there instead of flying had crossed his mind. It turned out that the other had been having similar thoughts.
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Further trips to the bar and more chat revealed that between them they’d crossed both the atlantic and the pacific, had very similar ideas about what kind of boat would be appropriate for the trip, and had similar ideas on timescales and budget.
After that it just became increasingly hard to answer the ‘Why not?’ question. Add to that the joys of waking up to the sight, sound and smell of the ocean can bring, through to being able to surf before heading to work – par for the course for Sydneysiders (the equivalent early morning dip in the Thames being reserved for only the most ‘hardy’ of Londoners), and suddenly plans started to look a bit more serious.
Before we knew it we had a spreadsheet, had done some research on possible boats and were exploring possibilities down in the Hamble…
It is fair to say that this is more the story of a really long holiday than a Columbus type voyage into the unknown. Hardly a walk in the park though, perhaps more of an active holiday. Nonetheless hopefully a story that you will find interesting, amusing, full of colourful anecdotes mixed with a healthy dose of daring and just a smattering of the random events that pop up when you try something a little bit out of the ordinary.
This is the ongoing story of The Long Sail Under, a journey by sail from the UK to Sydney on a modest budget in a Grand Prix raceboat.
September 28th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hi Ewan,
Great to see all your progressions on the boat! It looks really great and ocean proof.
It’s almost countdown before leaving to Portugal. How are things working out on the crew sign up?
Steef, Gerda, Susanne and I are planning to come over to Curacao (first 2 weeks of Feb09) for holidays and to meet you and your parents. Unfortunately Marlous, Jorgen and Vincent are not able to join for job reasons.
Lots of succes in the final stage before sailing off. Here is my suggestion for your boat name: NO WORRIES.
Stefan