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A week in Glen Lyon, Scotland
End of May 2023 My friend Ali wanted to celebrate her birthday in some style. The splendid afternoon garden party in a fine London square wasn’t going to quite cut the mustard, so she rented a farmhouse and a lodge in the most beautiful glen in Scotland. I confess that I haven’t been to every…
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How long does it take to prepare for an Arctic voyage from the UK?
16th May 2023 – London Reading time: 15 minutes Clearly there is no straightforward answer to such a wishy-washy question. It depends so much on whether you, and your boat, have made previous high latitude voyages. Even the location of your boat in the UK could affect the timing. To stick my neck out, I…
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Three Forts Challenge Half Marathon
30th April 2023 Reading time: Two minutes It is called “The Tough One” but, to be really tough, you would need to enter the full marathon rather than the slightly wimpy half version that we opted for. It is without doubt a very hilly trail run but the hills are not quite as grueling as…
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The Vertue’s Little Cockpit
28th April 2023 Reading Time Three Minutes Following in the wake of the recent post on “Sailing Mea” about stopping leaks in his cockpit, I thought I would join in the fun. All Vertues are slightly different but it seems common that the cockpit sole is very close to the waterline. Sumara’s cockpit floor was…
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South West Coast Path – Penzance to Penberth Cove
22nd March 2023 It was our original intention to go for a few days walking along the South West Coast Path heading eastwards and ending up at Lizard Point, but the difficulty in finding reasonably priced accommodation at this time of the year called for a change of plan. So we booked the camper van…
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Anchors and Anchoring
22nd February 2023 (updated February 2024) Reading Time 20 Minutes Before we start Sumara is a long-keeled boat, 26 foot long, weighing about 5 tonnes. She tends to lie to the current, rather than the wind. The boat does not have a windlass. My final choice of anchor tackle needed to cope with fairly extreme…
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Steyning Stinger – Half Marathon – 2023
5th March 2023 The Steyning Stinger is now a well established annual institution and is my favourite race. It is a very hilly trail run with about 1,600 feet of ascent. For some reason, it is slightly longer than a half marathon at 13.68 miles and that extra .58 of a mile is hard work!…
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Deal Half Marathon 2023
Grit and I have been running the Deal Half since 2014. It is covieniently placed two weeks prior to the dreaded Steyning Stinger, so if we had actually been following a training schedule, it would be a good point to start to taper off the training. However, we haven’t followed a training schedule, so we…
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Moffat in the Van
31st January 2023 We can make the journey from London to Oban, and vise versa, in one hit, but only if we leave at 06:00 prompt. I had to go up to the boat in Dunstaffnage (near Oban) to do one specific job. I would have stayed on longer to tinker but after I finished…
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Rudders, Tillers and Self-Steering Gear – Part Three
9th February 2023 Servo Pendulum and other Self-Steering Gear I suppose it must have been the 1995 Earls Court London Boat Show when I bought my Windpilot Self-Steering gear. Those were the days when you could browse amongst the various suppliers and compare and contrast, before getting completely slaughtered at the Guinness stand. Did you…