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Bigger is not always better – tools not boats
2nd April 2025 ..and I am not talking about boats this time, but just tools. Extractors. I made the mistake of buying a large Festool extractor. I forget the exact model but let’s call it the Maxi. It was a long time ago, but I remember my reasoning. There was a smaller “Midi” version, but…
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Heating on a Small Boat
17th March 2025 Reading Time: Ten Minutes When my boat was based primarily on the south coast of England, and, given that my sailing was mainly over the summer, the need for heating was very low down the priority list. On the rare occasions that I was sailing in the winter, my survival method was…
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Steyning Stinger – Half Marathon – 2025
9th March 2025 Reading Time: Two Minutes I know, another boring running post. The problem is that I started posting about this wonderful run in 2014 and it would seem weird to stop now. It also becomes a tiny little bit interesting now that the data accumulates as it shows how much you slow down…
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Deal Half Marathon – 2025
16th February 2025 You may be wondering what half marathons have to got do with sailing. I first started running as part of my training to climb Beerenberg, the world’s most northerly volcano. I had been caught out a few years earlier when I joined a group of friends skiing the Haute Route. I soon…
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Scoresby Sund 2026 – it’s on!
30th January 2025 Reading time: 5 minutes I am going to have just one more attempt to get to Scoresby Sund in my little 26 foot wooden yacht. This time will be my 4th try and it will definitely my last attempt! Before committing to the expedition I needed to secure a seafaring crew for…
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Me and My Vertue
22nd December 2024 When I sailed into Salcombe during the summer I had the pleasure of meeting up with Roger Robinson who runs the Vertue Yachts website. It is a great resource for anyone interested in Vertue yachts or indeed any closely related small boats. While we were nattering Roger suggested that it would be…
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Marlow Half Marathon 2024
3rd November 2024 Reading Time: Two minutes It’s always the same story – never enough training! Last year I had just returned from the North West Passage and this year I had simply been sailing all summer. I don’t know why, but going for a run after a long sail simply doesn’t appeal nearly as…
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St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival 2024
7th and 8th September 2024 Reading time: Five Minutes Not only did we make it, but we even had a day in hand. It was handy to have some time up our sleeves because I made rather hash of hoisting the “Dressed Overall” flags. They need to be in a specific order. The rumour is…
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The Dash from Lymington to London
Friday 6th September Reading Time: 5 Minutes I had enrolled to enter the St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival which is held over the weekend of 7th and 8th of September. What I hadn’t realised was that the last lock-in was on the Thursday high tide. With the wind forecast as easterly, we had task…
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Falmouth to Lymington
Reading Time: 8 minutes 16th August 2024 Malpas to Brixham Sumara had been left on a buoy near to Malpas while I returned to London for a month. The boat was well looked after by our friend Jo. When we arrived to retrieve Sumara, she managed to find us a space on the walk-ashore pontoon…