External Links
Do link to any of these recommended sites
Tom the oceanhippie has sailed with me quite a bit and his web site has a lot of pictures and is a good laugh to read provided that you can put up with his appalling spelling! He says it's not his fault that he's dislexic ( ... or however you spell that !) He said that the spelling on his website will improve but the discerning reader will decide! It's a little while since he did much hippying around oceans but it may be a good insight into the sort of things one can get up to when cruising around! http://www.oceanhippie.org for the Oceanhippie's site. Alternatively for more "Geeky" stuff see http://www.oceanhippie.net
Ferroboats is a good site written and maintained by Colin Brookes the designer of the Golden Cowrie and Fijian classes of ferrocement boats. There is lots of pictorial evidence that ferrocement is a good boat-building material. http://www.ferroboats.com for Ferroboats.
I bought the mast and spars as a kit from Z-Spars in Suffolk www.zsparsuk.com and subsequently bought the rigging and other bits from them. Very helpful for the rigging novice and expert alike.
Brighton Sailing Club is a friendly dinghy club with open beach launching facilities situated on Brighton sea front in between the piers - http://www.brightonsailingclub.org.uk for Brighton Sailing Club. If this link doesn't work (or takes you to "Deerfield") then email Tom - oceanhippie@yahoo.com
Sussex Yacht Club is a large club with a good boat yard situated up the river Adur in Shoreham-by-Sea. It was home to Ramprasad in her project stages for the years 1991-1998 - http://www.sussexyachtclub.org.uk for Sussex Yacht Club.
Marabu Sailing Club used to own and run two wooden classic yachts on which I sailed a lot in the years 1985-1996 http://www.marabusailingclub.co.uk for Marabu Sailing Club.
I bought a Windpilot Pacific Plus wind-vane self-steering gear and fitted it in early summer 1998 before the first Atlantic crossing. We steer with this gear about 99% of the time on passage. I cannot recommend it more highly! It is almost certainly the best wind-vane self-steering gear available for cruising yachts. http://www.windpilot.com for Windpilot - and then click on a wind-vane flag according to your preferred language.
In 1998 and 2000 we entered the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) from the Canaries to St Lucia. This rally is a great way to get to know other people and yachts doing the same sort of thing and to cross a large bit of water with quite a few social events to go to before the start in Las Palmas and after the finish in Rodney Bay. http://www.worldcruising.com for World Cruising Club.
WDCS is the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment. They provide handy cetacean ID sheets. http://www.wdcs.org for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
Onpassage.com is a site designed and run by cruisers, it claims to be
the largest and most comprehensive cruising site on the web. http://www.onpassage.com/
It provides everything the cruising yacht requires all on the one website.
Amongst other things, you can get worldwide weather forecasts and Tropical Storm
warnings quickly and easily. Please feel free to visit the site at anytime to
find the latest cruising information. They have a new section of "cruisers
own websites" to help create a community where we can all keep in touch
with "who is doing what and where". A very good way of doing this is
to initially bring all cruisers websites into one directory. This will make it
easy to find all of these excellent sites quickly.
Bob Turnbull bought a black Warrior 35 hull named
"Gem of Whitby", completed and launched her at
Sussex Yacht Club, and is planning some extensive cruising.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bms for Bob's site.
Pekka and Anja Hildén are Finnish friends with a Jonmeri 33 called "Venla". They have set out from Finland on Venla's second trip to the Caribbean and are entered into ARC2003 http://www.venla.com for their site.
Carl Strater is a dutch single handed Cat sailor. He has a very interesting boat called "We Two Are One" and a good site in dutch with an understandable emphasis on catarmarans http://www.w2r1.nl
Angus and Ruth have a nice steel cruising boat called "Do It..." www.DoItCruise.info
Nina and Henryk are a Norwegian couple cruising around the world with a cat on a Contessa 26 called "Bika". To see if it could work they lived on the boat in Norway for a year before setting off. In Norwegian and English www.freewebs.com/sybika
The Azores are a group of nine populated islands strategically located in the mid-Atlantic about a thousand miles West of continental Portugal. The island of Faial is the Westernmost of the central group of five islands and in Horta (its capital) has had a well protected port for some time that has been used by the international community for a variety of purposes. In recent years Horta has become an important yachting crossroads and meeting point. It is a good place and the people there have done rather a lot to make it so! One place in Horta that is particularily worthy of mention is the Cafe Sport also known as PetersCafeSport. The Peter in question was actually named José Azevedo but he did an awful lot to welcome yachting visitors in previous years. Do link to their website http://www.petercafesport.com and you will get something of a taste of the place. However you will probably need to make allowances for the fact that English is not their first language and the translations from Portuguese are not perfect.
This is a picture of the Ramprasad painting on the harbour wall in Horta as restored and improved in June 2001 and July 2004
Do link to any of the following pages or link to any page shown on the left :-
Home Page Pilot Whales Azores-Falmouth Visit to Pico St Martin-Azores 12 Year Project Return to UK A Year Away