Initially we chose four things to spend money on, to make the cruising we intended to do, more enjoyable. In this video we explain what we have done and try to provide the rationale around our choices.

It was a little tense but not unpleasant sailing and after a few hours we popped out of the murk to a starlit sky and a building North Easter. We could just lay the Ile Pomegues off Marseille and the 1970’s S&S design began to live up to her reputation as a windward wizard

Following the sighting Nick rented a small plane to locate VAL and was set to rent a boat to bring VAL when the police said they had a training exercise nearby and they would tow VAL into Eden. Nick was told not to tell anyone that VAL had been found to avoid salvage claims.  VAL was repaired in Eden about 235 miles south of Sydney. A local man donated to Nick a new full suit of sails that he had kept for his next boat that never came to pass because of ill heath.

We talked about the boat and his sailing life in Lamu. So many of his issues were the same as ours; dwindling timber supplies, increasing maintenance costs, changing weather patterns. Within a few minutes he had invited us for a sail on his smaller double ended dhow the SAFINA to learn a little about how to sail a lateen rigged boat and to enjoy the waters of the mangrove clad Lamu channel at the height of the off season.

After sea trials on St Vincent's Gulf, John, then an academic in history at Adelaide University, obtained a grant to undertake research in the Lau group of islands of eastern Fiji. The boat was trucked to Sydney then loaded onto a ship to Tonga

And so it began- a young rope maker, good at his job, invests in his trade and himself and opens a shop. The business expanded over nearly four centuries and In 1890 the 15-year-old Arthur Beale joined the business

When they were about 60 miles off the port of Stad on Norway's west coast, they encountered rough conditions with waves of up to 15 feet. The crew sent a mayday at about 1800 hours Tuesday evening, according to Norwegian authorities, and a helicopter was dispatched to the scene. The aircrew found that the boat was not in distress and had issued a false alarm, according to Norwegian media. 

It cost more money, and took longer to complete, than I could have ever imagined.  That’s a story as old as Job.  At times, I wondered if I would ever escape back to sea.  From Monday to Friday, I’d get up at 5.30 am, row my dory across the river from Dangar Island to Brooklyn, after a quick breakfast, catch the 6.35 am train to work, and get back to my boatshed at 7 pm.   Then I’d have to get up early every Saturday and Sunday, row across the river again, and go to work on Mudshark.

By this time a crowd had gathered. Word had spread of the Mzungu’s visit, always an opportunity for some quick cash. The sun was getting hot, excitement was rising, and the boat building advice was flowing fast in Swahili.

On Lamu, the values of Swahili culture are strongly attached to maintaining the traditional knowledge of dhow-building. The preservation of this traditional knowledge relates intensely to the conservation and sustainability of Swahili culture.

But the penny suddenly dropped. Moon-spaceship-boat-Iceland. I skyped John in Switzerland and not long after we hung up, he had the boat booked. All I had to do was organise a group of eight friends to fill the bunks and find good ski-touring gear. Where we were going there were no lifts.

After patching up the old boat, he'd drifted from Spain to the Canary Islands, thinking the climate there might be more congenial for working outdoors in winter.  In the Canary Islands, he realised it was easier to sail on to the West Indies than beat back against the prevailing winds to Europe. ‘After that,’ he said, ‘it just made sense to keep going.’

The small boats take five people about a month to construct. The planks are made from a timber from the Congo. It appears that the supply of this timber has dried up and many boats were on shore half finished with no work going on. A small fishing boat hull costs about 3 million Ugandan Shillings

Melbourne based SWS has a loyal readership of 200+ in Denmark each week. We hope its the sailing stories and not ‘Something about Mary’. We recently received emails from Jens and Klaus Toyberg-Frandzen. They asked if SWS could get a letter and photo to Bill.

Once, 42 days out of Sydney, while beating painfully to windward off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, en route to Nelson, he somewhat outrageously wrote that he was starting to like ocean sailing.  He’d sailed more than 70,000 miles at that point.

The finished yacht was exquisitely built, with fine dovetail joints and a beautiful interior, with the varnished red-cedar planks offset by white-painted frames and stringers, and lofty, varnished spruce masts. Less than 20 months after John laid the keel, he hoisted sail and set a course south, bound for Hawaii.

As the world becomes more and more risk adverse, and our weekly screen time reports go up and up, perhaps we can be advocates for stepping outside the commonplace and doing things a little differently.

After threading his way through the island-strewn Bass Strait, often running on ded-reckoning in thick weather, he made landfall in Kiama after 92 days, going on to Sydney a few days later.

He looked at his father and discovered he was ankle-deep in water. Then he looked over his shoulder to the vastness of the Pacific. “There were three orcas; a daddy, mummy and a baby in between. The daddy’s head was split open and bleeding badly.”

‘The run from Honolulu was a nightmare. In the last weeks of December I battled constant gales. The turbulent sea threatened to smash my boat to pulp. On two occasions the little boat was wallowing more than half full of water. My arms were so tired from constant bailing, I could not raise them above my shoulders. Once again, I strapped myself to the bunk and prayed. Providence has been kind to me.