The skipper and what he's planning

 Welcome back to Tzu's Odyssey, a somewhat grandly titled page about an "average bloke with a boat", sailing an average boat, on what to some is an average journey.  

The Odyssey.. 

So the route might look a little like the chart above, I know we are starting from Southampton and likely to spend a night in Yarmouth.  After that the only 'almost definite' stops will be at Newlyn (6) and Milford Haven (8) but who knows?  We are at the mercy of the sea and the weather.  

The route on the chart is 433 nautical miles,  it will be interesting to see what the final mileage looks like.  

Nautical miles are used to measure the distance traveled through the water. A nautical mile is slightly longer than a mile on land, equaling 1.1508 land-measured (or statute) miles. The nautical mile is based on the Earth's longitude and latitude coordinates, with one nautical mile equaling one minute of latitude.

so our planned journey is closer to 500 of your English (or Welsh) road going miles

The Skipper.. 

I'm Steve, the skipper  and have been Tzu's custodian for about 8 years now.  I'm a born and bred Brummie having been born into the world in the fair City of Birmingham in the vintage year of 1964.  Naturally being in a Midland City that could claim to be furthest from the sea I developed a hankering for ocean going and bought my first boat "Plumbob" from a bloke in Newcastle 15 years ago.  Plumbob was a 17' Silhouette "trailer sailor" that I used to tow to and sail from Shell Island on the Welsh Coast between Barmouth and Porthmadog and re-named "Two plus Ten", an Ice Hockey term as I was playing and refereeing a bit at that time.  She was the only boat i have ever re-named and she came from her previous owner in Newcastle .   Tiring of trailering we sold her on and bought "Hobbit" from a bloke in Southampton, a 21' Vivacity which after some  work we got to a mooring at Pensarn, in the same lagoon we used to launch the prevous boat into.  

Next up was "Kestrel" a 24ft Snapdragon 747 with an evil 2 cylinder Yanmar engine that could take all day to cross the bay from Mochras to Pwhelli.  While we had Kestrel we moved our base from Pensarn to Porthmadog a little further north in Cardigan Bay .  That brings us back up to date with Tzu being in Southampton and me being in north Wales

I took an interest in sailing fairly late in years and now have some experience and had some teaching, I have done RYA dayskipper theory and practical courses along with a VHF (radio) course.  I've sailed in each of the seas surrounding Great Britain and also sailed a couple of times in the Greek Islands.  

Although a crew on board for the journey helps, as while one steers the other can sleep or cook or plan or whatever, I'm pretty happy to journey alone.  I have a healthy regard for my own well being and will not leave harbour if there is a poor forecast. I'll be taking precautions such as wearing a life jacket and clipping on to the boat too.  I have marine radios, flares, charts and even an old EPIRB (electronic position indicating radio beacon) on board. 

I'll look a bit more into the charts I'll be taking in the next instalment as well as how I'll be getting the very important weather forecasts

Tzu, as I left her in March ashore at Marchwood.  Freshly antifouled and ready to go