500 Miles on a Hobie Tiger

Our goal this summer is to sail a Hobie Tiger 500 miles from Falmouth, UK to Zeebrugge, Belgium without trailering any stretch of the voyage. We will be sailing all day, and beach camping at night for almost two weeks in early June, hoping to reach Deal, Kent by the Platinum Jubilee weekend (2/3 June). We will then crossto the French side of the channel by sailing to Dunkirk, and complete our voyage with a stretch along the north sea to Zeebrugge, near the Belgian/Dutch border.

Along the way, we'll be campaigning for a charity called the world land trust, which does extensive conservatoin work in the world's rainforests, by buying acres of land to protect them from biodiversity loss. If you want to know more, here is a link to their website: https://www.worldlandtrust.org/?gclid=C ... lsrc=aw.ds

We have planned a detailed route (let me know if you would like to see excel file), aiming to cover between 40 and 60 miles a day, depending on weather conditions. We have also assembled a solar panel to charge phones, safety equipment, etc. meaning that we have the freedom to camp wherever we want. Speaking of camping, a three man tent has been acquired, which we're hoping to pitch either on or near the boat, depending on which is more comfortable.

After sending out an email to about 20 south coast sailing clubs, we have also been able to secure amenities for every second or third night, meaning that we can have a warm meal, a shower, and a rinse of our kit every now and then. For the channel crossing between Deal and Dunkirk we will have a rhib accompanying us, mostly to satisfy our parents that we're not going to drift to Norway.

Originally, we were planning on sailing with a crew of four, spread across two boatss, however, for lack of a fourth crew, we are now sailing 3 up on just one boat. On that note, if anyone reading this would like to join us on our adventure, or knows someone who would, feel free to let me know (the more the merrier, right?).

Also, if you live on or near the south coast of the UK, we're almost guaranteed to be sailing by you at some point, so reach out if you'd like to say hi! I will try to post a list of all the sailing clubs that we will be stopping at once that is finalised, so maybe you can come meet us there as well.

Any and all messages of support/interest/concern (hopefully not...)/etc. are always welcome, especially if you are thinking of meeting us or doing something similar yourself so comment here and I'll do my best to reply.

All the best and Happy Sailing,

Ferdinand

How far did you guys get? What was your sail number - we saw some guys with sail number “3X0” camping on the beach in Babacombe earlier in the year - looked like they were doing a similar thing.

Yes that was us! Babbacombe was quite early on in the trip, we’ve made it to Deal in Kent by now after having some down time in southampton when our mast unfortunately came down. Everything is documented fairly well on our instagram page (@the_channel_expedition) if you’re interested, we’d welcome the follow

Classic! I’ve some images of you setting of from the beach if your interested.