29th May 2006
Departure date has come (and gone). It's blowing force 6 to 7 from the Northeast, cold and rainy and though Zealander is ready to go, there's no way. Anyway, Phillip Jamieson can't make it till Sunday because he's got too much work on.
From the last posting till now, I've been getting Zealander shaken down, a couple of rough weather day sails, stretching the new rigging and tightening everything up. HNP engineers from Lerwick, the Volvo agents, sent their star guy, Gordon Williamson, to look over the engine, which, in the event, proved fortuitous, me being a complete dud when it comes to anything mechanical. He was not too pleased with the state of the actual fuel, although the engine was fine. This meant we had to lift the galley floor, open up the fuel tank and empty out every last drop of old fuel, before refilling with new fuel. Don't worry, we're not going to throw the old stuff away, it'll heat the cabin stove for the next few years. Next we had a technical problem with the new echo sounder, which meant sending it to Cleveland. I'm reliably informed that, at the date of writing, it will be delivered on Friday.
Och well, never a dull moment. Karen, my friend and associate at Shetland Sail and Film, works as Public Arts co-ordinator for Shetland Amentiy Trust. She'd heard that I'd had to delay my departure and asked me to film a collaborative arts project involving a group of Faroese and Shetland artists.
The weekend event (26th to 28th May) proved to be a stimulating experience for all involved. We're working on the footage and sound track right now. You can see some of the stills from the shoot, follow the Photo Album link below
Creative design from Faroe and Shetland
Well, that's it for now, except to say that since Hans Marter at rthe Shetland News published a small article on their website, which was picked up by the Orcadian, I've had a few offers for potential crew members, which is great because Adam, the sound engineer from Wales, who was going to be handling the sound engineering work, has just signed for a record company, basically leaving me on person short. Watch this space.....
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3rd May 2006 - Skeld Marina - Dave
It's been a long winter and to date, there's not much sign of spring or summer here at 60 N. Wind's been blowing at 30 knots + from the South East for a couple of days now without much sign of a let up. Dosen't stop the work to get Zealander ready for her trip, though. When it's too rough outside there's plenty to be getting on with below.
A brief rundown of work to date, probably missing out a few details.
I've also been working on the navigation and weatherfax software which we will download using Cellphone technology or satellite when we're out of range. The satellite phone, and Iridium with data kit was supplied by Explorer Satellite in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on the recommendation of a friend of Debbie's, Joni Hildal, who skippers yachts in the Caribbean. The aptly named Andy Cool of Explorer, has been great to deal with and the system works fine. It is very expensive to use, as a general rule ($1.25 per minute for speech or data), but text messaging is free and this is what we'll use to update position data on the site.
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29th April - preparing the anchor
(use the virtual start button to play clip)
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1st May 2006 - Greenvale - Dave
Having recently taken early retirement from the Shetland Smokehouse, the company which my wife Debbie and I started 20 years ago, friends have often asked "How are you going to spend your time? " .
That's never been a huge problem for me, because it was always my intention to marry the skills which I've learned throughout my r elatively long career to date, namely, photography and design, deep sea fishing, pilotage and business. All these career moves have left me in a fairly unique position. I just couldn't envisage a life of aimless cruising on a yacht, tempting though that might have seemed.
I'd bought Zealander a couple of years ago with a view to refitting her as a mobile film studio, thinking that I would put together some interesting footage and possibly as a source of modest income. Last year we had a cruise to the North of Scotland and the Hebrides - I love visiting the tropical South :-) - you can see some footage from the trip on this site - anyway on the trip North, from Stornoway to Shetland, about latitude 59N, Mike Skinner and I saw a shoal of Bluefin (I think) Tuna. They were jumping right out of the water, a magnificent sight and the shoal was pretty large, with individual fish looking to be about 2 metres. This incident sparked the idea that things are really changing in the Northern latitued if Tuna are migrating this far North.
Subsequently, in conversation with local fishermen here in Shetland, it became obvious that within their lifetime, changes are being experienced and observed. These stories are a unique chronicle of our time. Gradually I developed the idea of making a documentary film of these experiences, cutting the interviews with more lightsome background stuff about the places we visit, the music, stories superstitions etc.etc., all relevant to the central theme, and much more relevant in human terms to people's understanding of the changes and how they are going to affect us, than the dry stuff of "Science-speak".
To date, and you will be able to follow all the progress through the site's calendars and this blog, I have fully refitted Zealander and equipped her with the tools necessary to do this job with a reasonable degree of professionalism.