Hello friends,

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.)

Since we started this though, to our delight and astonishment, the reaction has been bewildering and incredible. All kinds of fantastic people have got on board in a wave of incredulous support. Many seem to like the spirit of it and the ‘With Sails and I’ network is ever growing: we are now being fully trained by “On Deck” to become skippers; website designers, TBS, have offered to do all our on line stuff for free; people have offered to lend our producer enough money to continue filming until after Edinburgh (we haven’t sold the documentary though); sailors have offered us sailing lessons on their boats; we have even been offered lessons in beach foraging skills. Offers of encouragement and help have come in across the board, from Tracy Edwards MBE (the first lady to skipper an all female crew around the world) to Pete “W*nkers” Bennet (the best big brother winner ever).

Through our clip, and as it snowballed, we met Geoff Holt, the first quadriplegic yachtsman to sail single handed around Britain. He got on board and threw us off his speed boat in the Solent - “to teach us Man Over Board procedures”. Through Geoff we heard about “sailability”, a charity that he set up, and this gave us the idea to make this story even more uplifting. Not only are extraordinary things now happening to Richard and I and all involved, but its also all going to help loads of other people too. Its a win-win situation BUT even more of a responsibility for us to get there.

So to make this hair brained scheme work, all we need now is… A yacht!

Busking and small gigs aside we need to do a final big comedy and music extravaganza to get this boat and more money for sailability:

Its on: Sunday June 7th at The Pigalle Club, 215 Picadilly, London W1J 9HN – It’s hosted by Lenny Beige. There’ll be some classic Hopkins and Glover sketches plus support from Phil Jupitus, Matt Berry, Oram and Meeten, Waen Shepherd, Tony Way plus many more special surprise guests to excite and amuse. Its going to be excellent, with a live house band to back it all up.Ticket price £20-  The profits we make from the show will be matched by the production company. They will use this money to buy the yacht. �
We will then sail the yacht to Edinburgh, the yacht will then be sold after the show. All the profits from the sale of the boat will go to Sailabily.

If you can’t make it to the show and want to effect what kind of boat we do it on, and be part of the story, you can donate via PayPal:

Reservation: 0800 988 5470
(after 6pm call: 020 7734 8142)

 

*** DONATE NOW IMAGE ***

Your donations will allow us to get an even bigger boat and therefore increase the benefit to ‘sailability’ when we sell the yacht. If we raise more than we need for the yacht the excess will go directly to Sailability.

Hope to see you at the show,

Much love

John