Saturday 27th June 2009

After a long wait, I'm delighted to announce the arrival of Susana, my crew member for the Atlantic crossing.  I have updated The Crew link in the top menu bar with full details.  CLICK HERE.

Susana and I visited Hyde Sails at their sail loft in Curbridge yesterday.  Hyde have kindly cleaned Impossible Dream's 3 sails and are making some repairs and strengthening some areas of the cloth so there is no chance of failure on the voyage.  Our first impression was how enormous they look laid flat on the floor. Thanks very much to Gareth at Hyde.

Fischer Panda, makers of ID's generator visited ID in Plymouth this week to inspect the generator. Having a reliable power source will be incredibly important on the voyage as we need to power the autopilot and the many hydraulic devices on the yacht. Thanks to Fischer Panda for their help and support. The generator is due to undergo a full service and overhaul back in their workshop. One thing is for sure, neither FP or we can afford anything other than 100% reliability. Thanks to Barry and Chris at FP.

I feel a bit tired today as I was on the 10.00pm to midnight shift at the Young Carers Festival at the YMCA in Fairthorne Manor yesterday CLICK HERE.  My Rotary Club, Hamble Valley RC, act as volunteers in the canteen and I went for the late shift, unknowingly the busiest shift of the day.  We made about 200 burgers and hot dogs in 2 hours - I wasn't much help opening the bags of burger baps and hot dog rolls but we had a fun time.  There are in excess of 1500 young kids there, all carers for their parents.  Organised by the Children's Society, it is an annual event to give the youngsters a fun weekend away from caring.  As someone who needs full time care myself, it is moving indeed to see just how many, and how young these kids are. It also raises all sorts of questions about how, in a civilised society, we allow children so young to do a job that could/should be provided by the state. Wish me luck, I am back again tonight for the 8.00pm to 10.00 shift.  What a great event and a privilege to be involved with. Without exception, the kids were so polite and good humoured.

Comment of the week goes to my sons 7 year old friend Charlie.  He came home to tea with Tim on Wednesday. Whilst eating their sausages and mash, Timothy announced they had a supply teacher who "had the most enormous boobies" and revealed that "Charlie couldn't stop looking at them".  To which Charlie added, very matter of factly, "I didn't get any work done all day".  Boys heh?  We never change.