Sailing news

We at Bogun Towers have always adopted a suspicious approach toward guest contributors and have only allowed the same in exceptional circumstances (like for example when he nearly died, passim). We are however nothing if not lazy (shurely flexible? -ed) and we are delighted to bring you the following missive from one of his colleagues currently sailing across the Pacific with the Clipper round the world race:-

Asked what was the best bit of the trip so far, I would say China. It is difficult to convey the curious mix of sensations that Qingdao offered. A seaside town, with a big industrial base, as populous as London but with none of the traffic.

Everything is in Chinese. Not surprising, of course, but you get used to English being the lingua franca. I get used to being able to decipher what most words mean in most European languages. But Chinese uses characters. It's not just an antique script - ordinary working people actually read an write in it. There is a way of writing it in Roman script called Pinyin, but it is not in common use. So you have no idea what a building houses, whether it's a laundry or a hotel, for example, because it's all in Chinese.

So it's fun. And did I mention the traffic? Such as there is has a flexible view of roadsigns. They do usually stop at red lights, but pedestrian crossings are just places where they accept an obligation to try to avoid hitting you.

Crossing the road is an adventure, for there are no traffic islands. You go halfway across the street, and stand in the middle, with two or three lanes of traffic passing either side of you. Wait for a gap, and complete the crossing.

Living in the language school I was living with the Chinese, and eating their food. Different from what you get in a restaurant. Breakfast was usually man tou (steamed bread) spicy soup and a couple of tiny dishes of something spicy with ginger. As an honoured guest, I got an orange! All washed down with green tea.

And was it cold! I lay in bed, under the duvet, inside my sleeping bag. The poor buggers on the Clipper boats, sailing North from Singapore, were, I now know, suffering badly on their unheated, leaky boats.

The Clipper boats arrived, and there were very elaborate harbour-side welcoming ceremonies for each boat. This was a little odd, as they had motored up together, and were waiting outside the harbour. So one ceremony followed another at half hour intervals.

The Chinese make a huge fuss of Clipper. There was a formal welcoming banquet, with a profusion of excellent performers, lots of speeches, and a huge dinner. It was televised, and the girls in the office at the school watched it, wondering if I was there (I was, of course).

A discovery made in Qingdao was Chinese foot massage. Terrific,. I recommend it.

The race from Qingdao to Hawaii started on 24 Feb. It was cold and windless.After a while we anchored, to avoid drifting backwards. In the morning it had snowed, and I built a snowman on deck. The skipper had let out too much anchor cable, and it wrapped itself around the keel. So we took ages to get going. This was the first in a series of misjudgements which meant that we were 200 miles behind the leaders when we left the Yellow Sea and rounded the south of Japan.

We also split one of our spinnakers (not in itself unusual) and failed to get it down. This meant we sailed for a day with rags of sailcloth preventing us from hoisting other sails, and we fell further behind as a result.

The sail across (5,000 miles) was mostly uneventful. The wind was behind us, and these boats sail well downwind. We were keeping watches of 4 hours on and 4 hours off. This means you never get more than 3 hours' sleep, and this can be difficult, especially if we need to change sails or undertake other work which cuts into off watch time.

But the boats do not sail well upwind. They are shaped like surfboards. Imagine a 30 ton surfboard sailing into waves. They fall off one wave and into the next with a loud bang as the water hits the hull. Down below this is like living in a drum. My bunk is well forward, so it;'s great downwind - dry, and away from the noise of the generator. Upwind you feel the boat judder and twist alarmingly with each bang. You get thrown in the air too. It's hard to sleep in that environment.

And then there is the water. I have never known a boat with so much water inside the hull. The bilge pumps do not work well, and we were reliant on a portable bilge pump cobbled together by the crew (an electric pump and bits of pipe all held together with sticky tape) and a vacuum cleaner bought by the crew. At one point so much water was sloshing around inside that it got into some of the lead acid batteries (stupidly located low down in the hull, in an unsealed compartment). The resulting chlorine gas meant we had to heave to (stop) and let the wind blow the gas out. We had to pump the boat out, disconnect the damaged batteries, and then sail on. Very nasty. And we lost more time.

It says as much as need to be said about our skipper that he was unconcerned about the water in the boat until that occurred. There is a reason our boat is nearly always last, and the reason is him. We hardly ever see him on deck - he stays in his bunk or is glued to the computer screen in the navigation station. He doesn't want to win - he wants to get round safely and in (his) comfort.

To his credit, however, is the huge amount of time he has spent (along with Roger and Chris, two technically able crew members) tyring to fix the watermaker and generator. These are necessary, the watermaker because we do not carry enough fresh water for more than a week at sea; the generator because the watermaker (amongst other things) requires electricity. Neither functioned properly, and I took the view that Clipper had sent us to sea in an unseaworthy boat. The time and energy devoted to fixing crap equipment is another reason we have done badly.

There have been some serious discussions here about the next leg.

Life on board is tiring, and stressful as much as because we cannot wash as anything else. Water is at a premium, so we wash with wetwipes. We are not as smelly as you might suppose under this regime, but I should have liked a shower. Were the watermaker more reliable the skipper might allow it, but I guess it is prudent not to.

So ultimately into Hawaii, last, save for Western Australia, which was dismasted and went to Midway Island. She has not yet arrived here.

Hawaii is unlike anywhere else in the US I have been to. It's warm (although midwinter) and we are all in shorts. There is a Pacific feel to it. It feels safe, and there is a holiday atmosphere. It's a bit like New Zealand, without the culture. The history is of fairly ugly imperialist acquisition by the US, and there is little left of Hawaiian native people or artifacts. Nothing like the presence of the Maori in NZ. Not much agriculture either - just shopping malls and hotels in Waikiki.

Pammie arrives tomorrow, and we shall see a bit more of this island (Ohau). Whether we see other islands is questionable. Pam may have had enough flying, and there are no ferries.

I'm dreaming of a White Easter

Having not had enough of Tom he invited himself up to join him, Leady and Cecil in the Lakes at Cecil's cottage in Patterdale at the bottom of Ullswater for Easter weekend.

Having not seen Cecil for 8 years (and Leady for 3 years but that barely counts) this promised to be a weekend of serious catching up. On arrival at the cottage Cecil posed the question, "so what you been up to" to which in good solid taciturn style, "married, divorced and moved to Birmingham, you?" which was about the sum of said catching up.

A night in the pub kicked matters off, not the local however as Cecil has contrived to be banned from that...for life, where they ended up chatting with all the young 'uns in the Lakes to work in the tourist industry...who promptly invited themselves back to the cottage. It would appear from their easy familiarity with the place that this may happen most nights.

Rather sneakily our subject snuck off to bed first to bag the only decent spare bed in the house, well that is what he claimed but we all know the truth.

The next day dawned beautifully and so they decided to walk up the length of Ullswater and so off they set. Well we say we but Cecil decided he could not be bothered.

Ullswater has some quite fabulous views and as we say the day had started beautifully.

Of course in the Lakes one should never expect the weather to hold for long and pretty soon they were trudging up through the snow.

As they trudged they came across a small hotel in a small hamlet and decided to pop in for a drink and possibly lunch. They discovered however some proper walker apartheid as they were directed to a tiny little bar at the back and whilst they saw the residents tucking into a fine lunch served from the gargantuan kitchens, whilst they were offered a selection of pretty uninspiring sandwiches. Clearly our subject was never going to accept this second-class treatment and so off they set again.

They trudged on eventually slumping down in the lee of a stone wall to enjoy their packed lunches.

Eventually 13 miles down they reached the top end of the lake and resolved (after a restorative pint) to get the steamer ferry back down to Patterdale. Sadly the ferry stops about half-way down and despite our subject's protestations they hopped off to carry on walking all the way back.

By the time Patterdale hove into sight it was getting pretty dark.

A turn round was quickly ruled out and so they just walked up to the next village for supper (taking the daily total to 20 odd). Coming out of the pub after supper (just to change pub you understand) they were met with the snow plummeting down at a vast rate of knots promising a real blanket the next day and they were not disappointed.

Our subject was keen to set off and throw his car around the high hill roads (obviously sensible in the snow) and off he ventured early doors finding a fantastic road through a high pass and proceeded to behave like an utter child.

Life and death in the Wakefield Rhubarb Triangle

With the Grand Slam on the line (and e-bay looking for £1,000 a ticket) he decided to head up north to spend the weekend with his splendid friends Tom and Lucy (and their daughter Emily).

Friday night was a mere warm up for the festival of rugby lined up for Saturday which kicked off at 1000 with the start of the Townend Cup*. Some live schoolboy rugger consumed they felt the need to consume some beer and some 6 nations action on the gogglebox. Recognising the dangers of staying drinking all day they returned to the live action for the final of the Cup (Tom's school running out easy winners in the torrentail rain).

Sensibly they then joined the kids in the pub for the Wales-France game. As our subject entertained them with his social Tourette's the boys in red were doing their job and running out winners of the Grand Slam. As he did last time this happened the booze just poured down him until he passed out.

Come Sunday his head wanted to fall off but still the grin was there (and tragically the tears as he read about it all over again the Sunset Times).

The usual splendid weekend. If only Wales can repeat this performance in South Africa in the Summer (we are delighted to say he plans to go).




*Note for readers, Tom is a teacher, the Townend Cup is his school's annual invitational 15-a-side cup for 8 teams.

The Great Big Hen - Part 4

And so the weekend finally came to an end (and your editorial team finally got their fingers out and decided to approve your correspondent's prose) although Christine seemed keen to drag out her days as a Princess to the bitter end.



Ludlow does of course have some touristy attractions and so some of them decided to go and see it.

Whilst some of the group behaved themselves there is always one (usually our subject but here unusually Naughty Nigel).

With that culture out of the way they finally decided to draw the weekend to an end (although the tractor rally on the way to the hotel was a pleasant surprise).


And so the curtain came down on a truely splendid weekend and much to our surprise he managed to fail to ruin Christine's special weekend, now we just have to hope he can achieve the same failure on her special day.

The Great Big Hen - Part 3

Disastrous walk over, the rather male tendencies of the Chief Hen (aka our subject) took over and rather then them heading off for some pampering in some rather effete spa they duly hit the very excellent Old Bull Ring pub to watch the rugger.

Wales won; England lost so a pretty good day all in all.

Of course it would not be a Hen do without some ridiculous pampering but your correspondent refuses to report on any of that and so, gentle reader, we must skip forward to a rather splendid supper at The Fishmore Hall. The menu just about sums it up:-

A splendid evening followed the possible highlight of which was our subject's endeavour to indicate how he intended to introduce everyone at the wedding (when he will be Master of Ceremonies) through the medium of modern dance.

A retreat back to the hotel bar followed where the party got increasingly drunk into the very very early hours (well technically late) of the morning followed. The prospective bride cutting quite the dash.

The Great Big Hen - Part 2

With varying degrees of hangovers the party met up for breakfast looking all lovely in their fairy wings. For reasons not entirely clear our subject was required to eat everyone's black pudding, should sort out his anemia.

As the options available in Ludlow appeared to be "goto the pub" or "go for a walk" the decision was taken to "go for a walk". As one would expect in such a lovely part of the country it is quite difficult to arrange a walk in the countryside and for it to not be lovely. As one would also expect nevertheless our subject managed it.

The first council estate they wandered through was a bit grim; the scrap of waste ground apparently designated as a dog toilet that followed turned matters a little downhill; the second council estate neatly bracketed dog shit alley; the industrial estate really dig begin to take the biscuit, not only was it the usual boxy warehouse horror but in the middle of it all (straddling the footpath) was a food digestor aka the smelliest thing on earth.

By this stage tempers were getting a touch frayed. The real boiling point was the next hurdle, crossing the bypass.

However that achieved at last they reached some open countryside and despite looking a little foolish in their wings began to enjoy their stroll in the country.

That said they did manage to find some rusty farm machinery , another main road and some railway tracks to really top off the walk.

The Great Big Hen - Part 1

At last, we hear you cry, the tale of the oddest hen weekend arrives. We at Bogun Towers have been literally inundated with excited requests for news of the trip and can only apologise that due to our strict editorial controls it has taken quite so long to bring to print but fear not gentle readers we now present to you the tale of the Great Big Hen.

As many of our readers will now the lovely Christine is getting married to the incomparable Chris this year and so in traditional fashion hen and stag weekends were of course required.

Much as our subject had been hoping for an invite on the stag do (skiing in St Anton) much to his irritation Christine got it into her head that a non-traditional hen do was her kind of thing and she wanted men there and in particular him. Indeed so impressed was she by his skills as a raconteur at Churchy's wedding (passim) she insisted that he had to organise the blasted thing and perform Chief Hen responsibilities.

As one can imagine the opportunity to be the centre of attention on someone else's special weekend was far too tempting for him and so he agreed.

Keen to drag the party away from the London roots of the majority of the likely guests he decided to arrange it in Ludlow. For the record he has asked us to make clear that he did not realise this was essentially next door to his home until much later but on the basis that this must be lies we refuse.

The eventual party that made it to the beautiful Feathers Hotel in Ludlow were him, Christine, Naughty Nigel, TCO, Polly, Nia, Jarman, Dogs, Olwen and Sarah (plus Sarah brought her baby, Ellen and, just as importantly, her bloke, Chris, to babysit).

The festivities kicked off on Friday night with the gradual arrival in the bar of the various members of the group following a succession of extremely long and no doubt tedious journeys (bar one obviously).

Polly had made the rather foolish decision to visit a tanning salon for this special occasion and had clearly fallen asleep under the lamp.

However despite some mirth at Polly's pain the realisation that, this being a hen weekend, they all had to wear fairy wings did rather knock the gloss off.



With most of them arrived, bar Dogs who for some reason had decided to go to Crewe, they settled down for a splendid supper at their hotel and a hefty slice of alcohol. As all our readers will know an evening enlivened with one of our subject's "stories" is an evening rarely forgotten (despite one's best efforts) and with the group suitably lubricated and dressed up in a tiara for the hen (with thanks for Dafydd), wings for them all and T-shirts for two of them
this was certainly not one of them.

Catching up with a long lost friend

Having survived the horror of the journey home, a day's work and a complete skinful he decided to head to London in preparation for Mothering Sunday and take advantage of the time in the smoke to catch up with an old and long lost friend.

The usual tale of too much alcohol, some splendid food and much reminiscing about the last time they had hooked up followed before calling it a night drunk as skunks.

Oh and the chum? GG (NAG) of course.

Road (Ski) Trip - Part 12

The less said about the journey home the better. It started very early and finished very very late sometime the next day. To describe the entire experience as tedious would be fair.

As to a review of the trip putting it at its most simplest 30 hours in a car, 29 hours in a plane, 11 days of skiing, 7 different hotels, 5 different ski resorts and 1 miserable dose of the flu.

In reality just a great, great holiday. 2 weeks of amazing sunshine and skiing with the incomparble GG (NAG) (and on an editoral note many thanks to him for his contributions to the events we had to report on) has left him properly knackered, chilled out and, he thinks, looking good with a nice tan.

Next year we hear Japan may be the destination, we cannot wait.

Road (Ski) trip - part 11

After a miserable night in Summit, our advice - never go, they woke up to find the slopes being rained on. Not hugely surprisingly they blew off skiing for the last day and headed back to Seattle to see what sights this great city could provide.

Breakfast in a restaurant where they filmed "Sleepless in Seattle" kicked matters off before they wandered down to the sculpture park. Frankly more pony is about the best once can say about that. It comes to a pretty pass when a sculpture park claims that its benches are part of the sculpture.

Although a couple of the pieces had the possibility of being interesting.


So with all of Seattle's sights exhausted by 1130 they turned to the only option, drink.

Two pints in a sports bar being served by what was probably a fat tatooed woman but could well have been a man kicked matters off before they retired to the hotel for some golf on its simulator. 5 more beers helped that experience and frankly they needed it with our subject shooting 78 over par after only 12 holes, they were playing the St Andrews Old Course but even so this was pretty pathetic.

A couple of cocktails and they headed to the SkyTower for supper in the rotating restaurant. Not really an experience that either feels worthwile mainly because they were both so trolleyed they cannot really recall it.

The evening was thankfully brought to an end by some elephant sized slugs of gin.

Road (Ski) trip - part 10

Another day another ski resort. With Mission Ridge closed for the day they were rather glum about the prospect of Summit, which frankly looked a bit crap, but the insanse landlady (passim) suggested they go to Steven's Pass instead (about which someone had been eulogising in Mount Baker) so they decided to head that way even though it was miles out of their way.

They were not let down with a fantastic little ski area a little larger than Mission Ridge but similarly fun and old school (and full of grave dodgers (did we not agree seniors? - ed)). The snow had, it must be admitted, seen better days but was perfectly skiiable and the two of them skied their little hearts out and really chasing down some challenging skiing.

With the day done some rather strong beer was thrown down before they reluctantly started the trip to Summit for their last night in the mountains.

Their initial thoughts ("it looks a bit pony") were certainly not proved to be wrong with the view from the window of their crappy hotel
probably being the best thing about the entire resort.

Road (Ski) trip - part 9

There is only so much of a good thing one can live with and after two days of eating rancid lasagne they had reached their limit and so brought their Crystal trip to an end and headed over to Mission Ridge.

The usual early start and 3 hour drive later they found themselves at the top of a very quaint little ski area populated by the local grave dodgers (shurely seniors? - ed) with some of the nicest skiing through the woods that he has ever experienced.

The bomber's wing on the side of the mountain was quite weird though.



To add to the oddness of the locale the wind and snow had created some rather crazy forms on the top of the mountain.

After another great day's skiing they headed off to their B&B disappointed with the news that Mission Ridge would be closed the next day leaving them somewhat at a loss as to where to ski. Upon arrival at their B&;B they were rather perturbed by the rabbits on the porch and they were not settled down by the patent insanity of the owner who for some reason had them booked in not for that night but for the previous two. Of course on checking his e-mails it became apparent why she might have made this mistake; idiot.

The delights of the local town (Wenatchee) appeared pretty bare but much to their delight the waitresses at the local Italian were proper lovelies (but not similarly bare).

Road (Ski) trip - part 8

And so to Crystal. A 3 hour drive up into the mountains and back on the slopes to entertain the masses.



We have to confess that there is only so much skiing we can report on without getting just a little bit bored (plus our photo editor had a slip and mixed up the photographs and goodness knows which is which) but in the interests of good travel journalism we will just note that Crystal was just a little corporate for our tastes clearly designed at the weekend market up from Seattle it lacked a certain soul for skiing although the restaurant at the top of the mountain was fantastic.

That description could not be applied to their evening meals. They stayed at a lodge at the bottom of the mountain some 50 miles from the nearest "big" town (by which we mean more than 50 residents) so ended up stocking up in a pretty rancid general store in some 2 horse town. Their options were pretty limited so they decided to rustle up a lasagna. $70 for the ingredients could not exactly be described as value.

There was also a significant deficit in the quality department as well and with GG (NAG) spooning out the fat from the "lean" mince whilst also having to remove the bits of bone liberally scattered throughout it a quality meal was not on the cards.

Remarkably they both commented at the end of the evening that whilst at the outset they had rather expected the wine and the film to outscore the food the food was far and away the highlight of the evening. This should not be taken to be a complement to the food however.

They did not feel fortunate to have plenty of leftovers to serve them for their second night in Crystal.