Author name: Jamie Furlong

Been a liveaboard since 2005, spending first few years living in Turkey. Started sailing a few years before when I joined my father on his retirement present we got for him: a sailing course across the North Sea! Been writing about every single trip, both on sea and on land, since that day. Take photography seriously but miss my decks.

The Simm Family of ‘Storm Dodger’

• Log

“It’s a real eye-opener”, commented Astrid. “Another time one of our girls used to get up at four in the morning to get the milk in off the door-step. When I told her she didn’t need to do this she explained that her mother had taught her to steal milk from people’s doorsteps. She was three.” Sadly another of their foster children got into a fight in an underground station and was knocked to the tracks and killed. “Of course that was very sad”, says Astrid, “as he’d only left our care a week before.

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Susann of ‘Ilios’

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I only have one page to document the many, many things Susann does! From chartering to exporting generators, from motorbikes to oriental dancing, Susann takes multi-tasking to the extreme. After interviewing her I now understand why some people have 27 hour clocks by their bed. This girl does it all……..

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John of ‘Chagazee’

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When I worked on the tugs in Portugal my job was to provision the galleys, but I was also tasked with reminding the Portuguese ladies that the Brits were in town, so I would frequently recce the girly bars. Somehow I earned the nickname ‘Shagga’ by the Portuguese bar maids.

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Crew: Esper 2008

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What a strange bunch of crew! There’s the usual suspects with the family and Tac, who all came out from May – October. They need no introduction as they’ve all been out before, but some info on the others:

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The People’s Navy – What Happened Next

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Finally, after weeks of preparing his boat for a solo voyage down the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean at a difficult time of the year, Sam recruited a new crew member! Poppy, of s/y ‘Free’, agreed to join Sam for the majority of the journey. Poppy writes beautifully and contributes to the progress log, as well as helping Sam through a difficult journey. As I write this they have passed through the Suez Canal and already sent a number of updates and pictures

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The People’s Navy Website

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After one month of going live the site has received over 250 pledges, been translated into French, received 40,000 hits (or 4,000 unique users) and will be translated into German, Turkish and possibly Spanish. If you would like to get involved in translating into a language, please do get in touch with us.

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The People’s Navy

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Sam, bless him, had only expected five or ten people to turn up and really hadn’t prepared himself to explain why he was doing what he was doing in front of so many people. He moved the audience with his story and had to field some difficult questions. Some were uncertain of the whole point of Sam’s quest, which, in simple terms, was to bring about awareness of the Chagossian’s plight and eventually help get some Chagossian’s back to their islands.

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Marmaris Bay Cruisers Net

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I lowered myself down the companion-way and eased myself into what could only be described as a log cabin. Every bit of the boat was covered in reclaimed wood and other materials. The shelves came from his home in Devon and the stove had been chucked out as trash. The centre-piece, however, was the compression post (the post that follows the mast down into the boat). It was a piece of English oak that was to be used for a wooden boat reconstruction project that had fallen on hard times.

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Winter Charity Pool Tournament

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By the end of the weekend the grand total raised was $1500, which went to the Turkish national charity, Ozel Olimyatlar, which helps young people with learning disabilities to take part in organised Olympic sports (see the yellow box for more information on the charity). Proof that whilst we swan around in our expensive yachts, living an enviable and carefree lifestyle, some of us can still show a bit of humility and compassion.

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Do-Gooders plc

• Log

So a chance meeting with one man and his boat changed everything. It changed our future plans as sailors. It created a crossroads at which we would normally have gone one way, but have chosen to go the other. You know what I mean: one of those rare occasions which you look back on as being a significant moment in your life.

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Going Stir Crazy

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If your marina is fortunate enough to have golf-carts and tricycles knocking about, why not help yourself to one for your return journey after a heavy night in the bar? In an early incident Liz and I ‘borrowed’ the shop’s tricycle, which has a large basket on the back for carrying provisions. After taking five minutes to get the thing going (Liz sitting in the basket was playing havoc with my balance) we eventually rode across the marina, down four steps onto the pontoon, along another 20 metres to the corner, and stacked the thing.

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Big Stupid Boat

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Being the diplomatic chap that I am I won’t talk about the crew but it is worth mentioning that the non-drinking, non-smoking skipper farts at you when you ask him a question. Don’t ask. The chief mechanic and the hostess have already handed in their notice. The entire crew are alcoholics due to their Groundhog Day existence.

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Getting To Marmaris

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till, we spotted a turtle whilst running goosewing (Esper was running goosewing, not the turtle), this time with the main, jib and mizzen, hitting up to 8kn speed over ground. By the time we’d reached Kadirga Br., the last corner before Marmaris, we were a sweating, sunburnt and tired mess. We’d travelled over 50 miles today and still managed to get to Marmaris in time to drop anchor, have a refreshing swim, shower, get ashore and have a silly evening with our friends Benn and Becks.

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Don’t Worry About The Half Metre Depth

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Lessons learned? Rely on no one but yourself. Beware of Turks bearing gifts: they may say ‘yes, we can fix it’ to every problem posed but this is not always the case. We have now spent £££s on this transmission issue (I no longer call it a gear-box issue as there was nothing ever wrong with the gear box) and have wasted over a week at anchor waiting for various mechanics and boat yards to fix this problem. Still, you live and learn, innit?

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Tacking On Esper

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After lashing the video camera and tripod to the granny bars we were able to capture some great shots of us tacking Esper. As it happened, after pressing the ‘record’ button we had to do two tacks in quick succession, both of which were caught on one six minute clip. Obviously we’ve edited this for you into a short 1 minute montage. Our fave sailing clip to date!

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