I must admit this adventure has already really pushed me outside my comfort zone and i haven’t started yet! I’ve never been a fan of writing or publishing anything; I don’t really read that much either, so I’ve done a full 180 degrees and hopefully will learn a few things about “Blogging” and a few things about me along the way, so please be kind! I hope I will find a style that suits me and you, “the reader”—boy, that’s a bit scary!
So why Clipper 2025-26? “You must be mad,” I hear myself saying. Well, go back a number of years to a 15-year-old teenager, brought up in Northern Ireland and at that time living in a small seaside village called Ballywalter, on the East Coast of the Newtownards peninsula, County Down. The Irish Sea was literally out of the garden gate. Every summer, I was out with mates mucking about on the beach. I was very lucky back in those days to be hidden away from the world with the freedom to spend all my days out and about, only coming home when I was hungry or tired. We built forts on the beach to keep the sea out for hours; well actually, it took hours to build and minutes to destroy. We fought imaginary battles through the sand dunes, pulling up ferns and using them as spears. We beached combed for various bits of treasure, mostly broken fish trays, buoys, and fishing nets. It was all one big adventure which came crashing down at the end of August when it was back to boarding school. To be fair, I rather enjoyed boarding school, or rather playing rugby for the school. On occasions, my parents came up trumps with an activity to keep me occupied through the summer.
They came across the Ocean Youth Club, a sailing charity that gave young people from all walks of life the experience of sailing big boats as complete novices. So I was booked on a week’s experience on the Belfast boat, Grania, a 55ft Nicholson, which I was reliably informed was a very sturdy boat. My Dad had just purchased a 30Ft Northeaster named Eliza Brown, but was still a novice at this sailing game and was really looking to a great adventure. At 15, I was the youngest crew member on this particular week and, as the youngest and smallest, they wondered where I would be safest. I was really excited if not a little nervous, being introduced to all the new crew and ready to enjoy a new adventure; that was until my 1st watch!
We began our voyage from Strangford Lough, a vast tidal stretch of water, sheltered behind the Ards peninsula, the biggest tidal lough in Ireland and the wider British Isles, with a very small gap leading out to the Irish Sea, called “The Narrows”. My 1st job on watch that day, with the assistance of the 1st mate, was navigation. To be fair, I was more of a passenger, fascinated by all the charts and navigation equipment. So we weighed anchor and made our way out into the Irish Sea. Back then, I had no idea what “wind against tide” was and the effect of a tidal race of over eight knots would have on a 55ft sailing boat, or my stomach. Needless to say, I didn’t last very long at the chart table and was rather ill for the majority of the passage to Campbeltown, on the Isles of Bute, West Scotland. One of my lasting memories as I leaned, retching, over the side of the boat, feeling a bit sorry for myself, was a familiar bell ringing out in the ocean darkness, which sounded strangely familiar. I later found out it was the Bell Buoy of the Skull Martin Rock, a very dangerous outcrop of rocks off Ballywalter, which sometimes I could hear the buoy mysteriously ring from my bedroom. As the sun rose, we were arriving into Campbeltown Loch as a submarine randomly surfaced, what seemed like only a few meters from us; it was so much bigger than I thought it would be, we saw a few submarines that week. I learned so much from the skipper, the 1st mate, and my crew mates. After Campbeltown, my sea legs arrived, and we visited Tarbert and Inveraray before heading back out into the Irish Sea, bound for Londonderry/Derry in Northern Ireland and the end of my 1st week of offshore sailing. Certainly, a week that left a lasting impression on me.
This was a week that started my love for sailing. I loved the freedom, the things you came across at sea that you wouldn’t see on land, the range of wildlife, but most of all the sense of adventure. My dad purchased a Mirror dinghy which wasn’t in the best condition, so with the help of my younger brother Stephen, better known by his school name Charlie, we set about stripping her down, back to the wood, repainting her, and sailed her, off the beach in Ballywalter. Many enjoyable hours were spent repeatedly sailing her up and down the length of the beach in her gaff rig. But after a time, there’s only so many times you can sail up and down before the novelty wore off. So we became members of the Kircubbin Sailing Club and were introduced to racing. This was another level of excitement, and we, my brother and I learnt a lot, more by trial and error.
As the eldest, I was obviously the skipper and helm, whilst Charlie was the crew. I don’t remember us falling out that much, but it was a long time ago. Kircubbin Sailing Club was renowned worldwide for its Flying Fifteen fleet, with Irish, British, and world championship honours among its members, and actually built some of the early flying fifteens in what is now the Kircubbin sailing club, club house. It was only a matter of time before Charlie and I joined the 15 fleet in our own rather slow but sturdy “Flair”, we trained during the week and Saturdays but didn’t take it that seriously. I passed my RYA sailing instructors certificate when I was 18 but didn’t really take my sailing any further. Although I did complete the last leg of the Ocean Youth Club’s round Great Britain 25-year celebration in Grania, the 55ft Nicholson. This time it was a force 5/6 sailing from London to Brighton; I spent hours on the helm while others fell seasick around me. What a thrill—smashing into big waves, water thundering over the bows and soaking everything and everyone in its way. Unfortunately, the Ocean Youth Club ran into financial hardship but has morphed into the Ocean Youth Trust and some of its fleet are out there still training young people to sail. I continued to sail with my family in Eliza Brown, with countless enjoyable family summer holidays in her, sailing the west coast of Scotland and the Irish Sea. We had great trips up the west coast of Scotland from Lochgilphead through the Crinan canal, up to Oban, onto Tobermory, the isle of Eigg, and Skye and later in my Dads 2nd bought Trininga
After finishing my A-levels in Northern Ireland, I moved to Leicester in the early eighties to study Mechanical and Production Engineering at Leicester Polytechnic, now De Montfort University. Little did I know how far it was from the sea. Maybe a bit more background reading might have helped, but I had rugby, my biggest love, to keep me occupied at weekends. Over the following years, I’ve sailed some more with my family again around Scotland and the Irish Sea. But the Flying Fifteen was sold as it wasn’t being used, and my sailing literally dried up. When my kids, Robert & Nicholas, were older, I took them on a couple of sailing holidays. We had great fun on a Hobie cat, luckily in light winds, as for those who don’t know, a Hobie cat is a twin-hulled flying machine. I was really lucky to enjoy a couple of summers with a good friend hiring a yacht in Greece, spending two weeks on consecutive summers sailing island to island, without lots of drama, enjoying family time with friends and family. It was really memorable, to the point, where I completed my RYA day skipper theory course with the thoughts of doing more offshore sailing/cruising, something I’d like to do some more of in the future. I’ve spent some more enjoyable sailing time with that same friend on various shorter trips around the English Channel and to France; I should have done a lot more of that, really. As I’ve gotten older, the sea has become a go-to place for my summer and winter holidays; it’s been calming. I can spend hours just watching stuff happening in and around water & boats.
I’ve had an itch for adventure for many years, and when the topic of me becoming 60 started to loom at the forefront of everybody else’s conversation, I thought, “What would be a memorable thing to do?” It didn’t take long to conclude that yes, a Lions tour to Australia would be a great occasion to mark a great milestone in one’s life. I researched and talked to friends who were willing to share time and money with me to enjoy a Lions series on the other side of the world. It all went a bit quiet! I’ve been on a Lions tour before to New Zealand in 2005—18 days in a camper van with my mates with many a story to tell on our return. However, Australia was a different proposition, and whilst a camper van trip was possible, not really for the faint-hearted and 20 years older, I wasn’t really prepared to rough it in the outback. So the alternative—a fully organized trip, with flights, accommodation, and tickets all sorted. I looked at the costs, took a sharp intake of breath, and for the 1st time thought, “Is it really worth that much?” I mean, how much would I remember? There wasn’t a clambering of fellow rugby fans forcing the pace, and whilst I was looking for an alternative, my inbox, as if it knew, was being bombarded by Clipper 2025-26 adverts. I wondered how far I would get with Clipper for the same price as the Lions tour and, ironically, Australia. So off I went to investigate further, applied, and interviewed, and during those months thought long and hard about the possible outcomes and effects on others and how it could affect them. I had to pluck up the courage to ask permission from my partner Lynn, who has been great in supporting me. My two lads, Robert and Nick, my mum and dad have all supported me. The time is now; I probably won’t get another moment in time where everything lines up, so the call was made to circumnavigate as I probably won’t have another chance to do this.
Writing a blog about my experience started as a way to keep my family and friends informed of progress and what I would be getting up to in my travels around the world. The financial costs have been substantial, not only the costs implicated in the trip, but the fact that I won’t be earning anything whilst being at sea, still having bills to pay back home. I’ve completed many mad challenges over the years, raising thousands for various cancer charities along the way, so I thought how can I fundraise for me and some charities at the same time?
So now www.BOBingonaboat.com has morphed into something bigger. Charlie, my younger brother, and my two sons, Rob & Nick, have helped to set the blog up and will keep the fires burning at home, whilst I’m sailing. I’ve started a GoFundMe page, with the promise that if you support my blog and my GoFundMe page, 2/3rds of all monies raised will go to charity. 1/3rd will be given to Hope Against Cancer, a Leicester cancer charity that I’ve cycled thousands of miles for, and a 1/3rd will go to the RNLI Donaghadee Lifeboat Station, a lifeboat station in the local town in Northern Ireland where my mum and dad live and who have given 40 and 30 years respectively in supporting the charity. the final 1/3rd to me to keep the wolves at bay, back home.
Over the coming weeks and months, I will be adding to my list of blogs about the stuff we as crew have gone through on our various levels of training, and if there is something you’d like me to cover, then please feel free to drop me a line [email protected] and I’ll try to answer as best I can.
