Dear Friends of With Sails and I - John Here - I have just finished editing four sequences from over 200 hours of footage in order to try to raise finance to complete this journey. Its not easy sitting through that much footage, just to watch it takes a month and that’s a month of looking at yourself which is somewhat …challenging for the soul. The upside is I think we’ve been making something very funny and very compelling. We now have a great production company on board to help us on our way but more details of this later so as not to put them under too much pressure. Fingers crossed and thanks for sticking with us.

Another reason to write is I wanted to bring all of your attention to the incredible journey of one lovely man we met on our travels and that is Geoff Holt. Geoff got in touch and took us out for a day when he heard about our story and taught a few tricks. Geoff Holt is the first quadriplegic man to have circumnavigated Britain. (He broke his neck diving through a wave many years ago as a young sailor). He is currently crossing the f*****g Altantic in an adapted catarmaran. Sorry about the swearing but what a f**** **** S*** C*** nutter - I mean f*** s*** h** . I wanted to draw all of your attention to his blog which is this:

http://www.geoffholt.com/

His is currently in the middle of the Atlantic and his wind instrument is broken and his story is one to follow and all support would probably be welcome.

I hope you all have a splendid Christmas. More news soon. Best regards - John (and Richard)

So as you know, after serious deliberation and with a heavy heart we have to make a very difficult but sensible decision, to delay our great adventure (and the Edinburgh show) until next year.

We thought we had found our boat. A 32’ MacWester, more Steptoe and son than Julio Iglesias and Rod Stuart, it was described as ‘the land rover of the sea’. After a seven month, 24/7 struggle to get to the starting line and the clock ticking we were finally informed, after a thorough survey, that ‘our boat’ needed a month’s worth of work.

In yet another stunning display of support for the project the sailing community of Tarbert Loch Fyne, where the MacWester lay, rallied round to see if the boat could be made ready in time but there was just too much to do in the short time we had. The commnunity, including the sail maker, the harbour master and the Surveyor (Jimmy the Biscuit) then even networked to try and find us a boat to keep us on track and incredibly, found a 26 foot yacht that some one was prepared to lend us for the journey.

Sadly we had to accept that filming and doing this dangerous journey on such a small boat, with our limited sailing experience, combined with the schizophrenic Scottish weather, plus the Edinburgh deadline forcing us into a dangerous rush, meant that we had to find the courage to turn down this generous offer and accept that we would have to delay. We were gutted.

But the mission is still on and we now have lot more time. We have learned that if you don’t have money you need time. Having started this whole mission by turning on a camera we are also in the middle of making an amazing and funny documentary. We owe it to the people who have given their time and energy to support us; to those who have taken part in this filming; to the places and the people we intend to visit; and in particular to our training school, On Deck, to make the right decisions and to execute this fantastic mission,
and frankly brilliant idea, properly.

So what’s next? This all started with an incredible reaction to a short film, so I reckon the only real way to show you all what an incredible feat we have already achieved, and hopefully raise more money for the mission is to attempt another short edit. There is a hell of a lot of footage and this may take some time but hang on cos this should be good….

Don’t forget tonight, the big charity-fund-raising-comedy-get-us-a-yacht-show starring us, hosted by Lenny Beige and featuring Phill Jupitus at The Pigalle Club, 215 Picadilly, London W1J 9HN.

Reservation: 0845 345 6053

(Or just turn up at the door!).

So we’ve made it back from our first ever week at sea in training with the amazing On Deck who have taken it upon themselves to make sure we are not completely ignorant of the enormity of our task. Both of us feel like we are still not to be left alone with a yacht by any means. We can safely call ourselves incompetent  crew. Next week we do one more week training and we HAVE to pass the day skipper course if we are to be able to go. We have realised just how damned dangerous this is. Shit!

In the mean time we are doing a show to raise money for the yacht which we still don’t have. (Remember the bigger the yacht the more money goes to sailability. Please come and support us! We need your help.

Take care and see you at the Pigalle Ckub 215 Picadilly W1 to reserve call 0845 345 6053 or email reservations@vpmg.net
Phill Jupitus plus Britney Spiers will be appearing.

So, I decided, when I was completely broke at the beginning of the year, to try to defy the credit crunch by attempting to sail out of it on my own yacht (I don’t actually have a yacht). I decided I would try to get one using only positive thinking, a camera and talking to people -  I had nothing to lose.) I soon convinced my close and foolish mate, Richard Glover, also completely broke, to come come with me. He had never sailed anything in his life before either but, like me, had always wanted to have a yacht and be like Julio Iglesias or Rod Stuart. As we’re comedians we decided that, if we could actually somehow get our dream yacht, we would sail it around Scotland, from Glasgow, around Cape Wrath, to the Edinburgh Festival. Our plan: get a yacht, learn to sail it from scratch, sail it around Scotland, from Glasgow to Edinburgh, write a show about it on the way, and perform it live at the Edinburgh Festival. (Perhaps recklessly, we have already booked the 400 seat venue in a gung-ho moment of frightening over confidence.)

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