It was the 2nd of august 2008. I was in liverpool marina lock, readying myself for sailing singlehanded to Austrailia.
Now, when you tend to think about people that sail on voyages like this you might think about poeple like Helen Mcarthur, Chay Blithe, Dee Caffery or Sir Robin Knox Johnson. Hero's one and all, experianced sports men (and women) fit, knowledgable, brave and as a rule, rich!
Myself on the other hand. Mmm, im not realy like that. My name is Mark Hughes im 38 years young, 5' 6", 15 stone fat bastard, my mates call me Huggy. I come from a land locked village near Warrington called Winwick, im a welder by day, piss head by night and quite partial to a bit of the old nose candy by the gramme.
As for my experiance.... Well, about 2 years ago i accidentaly bought an 18' trailer sailor off ebay when i was pissed and coked out of my brain. It cost £800 and i used the "buy it now" option. Seeing as i had already paid for the fucking thing i had no choice but to go and pick it up from Whitchurch. So, after a 3 hour wank i decided i was proberbly sober enough to find my van. Four hours and one puncture later i rolled into our Deryk's farm, sparks flying off one of the trailor's rim's. obviously, i did'nt have a spare. As i pulled up next to the barn, I was warmly greeted by my cousin Tricia shouting " get that off my fucking yard " and her husband deryk just shaking his head. So after a quick brew and me promising i would help with spud picking (i never helped) they let me keep it on the farm, until I cleared enough space behind my hovel so i could park it there.
Now, having bought this old tub i quickly realised that theres a lot more to yachts than meets the eye. first of all, being a trailor sailor the mast was lying flat along the roof and my first job was to put it up. easier said than done. anybody that knows anything about yachts will know theres a lot of dangly stringy type things that hold the mast up and control the sails, and these things all have a correct home to goto. I did'nt know anything about yachts. So its off to W.H. Smiths for a copy of Yachting Monthly. I then looked at the pictures of other yachts and i copied where each dangly bit went. Lo and behold i got it up, and all without the need of chemical assistance. A first for me. Next stop, Anglesy.
It was a bank holiday weekend, the long one with friday and monday off work. So i decided to take "Mistral" my Alacrity 18 foot trailor sailor out for her (and my) maiden voyage. i had already bought a hand held radio and a chart covering Anglesey and adjoining waters. (I could'nt even read an A to Z) All i needed now was booze, weed, a bit of columbia's finest and a few mates to enjoy a weekend on the water.
the first person to enlist was our kid, Sean he's mad as a box of frogs, fearless and he has a lifejacket. which for some strange reason his mum (my aunty pat) bought him from the car boot sale, just because he was going for a weekend in the lake district. next there was keith. he was only coming cos it was a good excuse to get away from his bird. Next was south african jeff he also is a sandwich short of a picnic and will do anything as long as it involves a near death experiance. Last of the motley crew to join was john. now john likes the finer things in life, fit birds, nice cars, he drves a merc, lives at the gym, nice tan in fact he owns several sunbed shops and he joined without seeing my boat. I think when I said I had a yacht he was thinkng maybe a Sunseeker, snorting coke off a whores tits and then a ride on one of the jet ski's. Boy, was he in for a shock. I did'nt even have a fucking rubber dingy and the coke was on the back of an old cd box.
It was friday morning and four of us made our way to Amlwyc on the north coast of Anglsey. John was joining us later as he had to find somewhere to dump the kids. We got there around lunchtime and proceded to launch the boat. no major dramas there, this sailings a piece off piss. So we tied the boat up and then remembered we left the food and booze on the campsite we stopped at a few miles down the road. We left the boat tied up and made our way back. We got our gear and went to the pub for a bite to eat and a few beers. after a few hours merrymaking we headed back to the boat. Now, let me tell you. At this stage all i knew about tides were that they left a dirty mark around the top of the bath. When we left the boat we stepped off it straight onto the harbour wall. When we returned we thought the boat had been nicked. It was nowhere to be seen. On closer inspection the tide had gone out and the boat had dropped about 10 meters and the mast was below the wall.




When we looked down we were supprised to see a car driving past the boat on what was the sea bed and the boat was hanging by the ropes that we had tied it up with. As these tides take quite a while to go in and out, it was going to be a few hours before the boat would be bouyant again.
So with no chance of getting out onto old briney that day, we were forced back into the local watering hole for some more beer and a few liveners off the back of the pubs toilet. After we'd had a skinfull all that was left now was a visit to the chippy next door. Im sure my kebab and chips was very nice, but after all the crap i'd put up my nose that day, which proberbly included, vim, rat, poison, anthrax and topped off with with some dirty fishermans piss. I was'nt very hungry, so my food went to the dog. Oh, i never mentioned my dog.
Well, her name is Sheila and she is the love of my life. She is an Australian cattle dog or Blue Heeler and I never go anywhere without her. So, when i said i was sailing single handed to Oz, that wasnt exactly true. She is very friendly in a dingo type of way, and will eat anything, including, stones, plastic bottles, fag butts and even the odd baby, if the news papers are to be believed. (I still blame the mother) So my kebab and chips with hot chilli sauce was no problem.
On returning to the boat we were happy to see that it was floating again. All that was left to do was sort out sleeping arangements. As you can imagine, on an 18' boat this was never going to be the Ritz. It had 3 berths. Me being he skipper had to have 1, our kid, being the 1st mate and having the one and only lifejacket had to be close to me so he had the next. Jeff was faster than keith to the last one so Keith was left outside in the cold. After a shitty nights sleep we woke up to find Keith had gone home. I guess he just was'nt cut out for a life on the ocean waves. Sheila on the other hand, made herself at home and had shit in one of jeff's shoes. How we laughed. Well, Jeff did'nt. Sean soon cheered him up with a full english, cooked on a one burner camping stove, followed with a breakfast line and a can of carling. Renourished and fully charged we were finaly ready to cast off.
We motored out of the harbour and managed to put up the sails. There was a good breeze blowing from the west that suited us perfectly because we were heading for a place called Molfrie, about eight miles to the east of us. The sea was'nt too bumpy, that is untill we passed this lighthouse that was on a rocky headland jutting out into the sea. The waves were coming from behind us and for some reason they all of a sudden became quite big, but once we got used to the fact that the boat went over them and not the other way around it wasnt too bad. After about half an hour, as quick as these waves appeared they died away. We continued to sail on the inside of this island which we did'nt have a name for, so, due to the fact that that it's only decernable feature was what apeared to be either an anciant light house or single tower from an old monestery, we decided, much to our amusement to call it Dildo Island. A couple of hours and a few beers later we motored into the little bay of Molfrie, where we were to pick up John.
He was waiting for us on some rocks, but not having a dingy we were going to have a problem getting him aboard. fortunatly somebody had kindly left a rowing boat tied to a mooring bouy in the bay. We tied upto the bouy and it was decided that Jeff and Sean go and get John, some petrol and a cheep rubber dingy and I wait with the boat. This was'nt the Oxford rowing team, the boat was never overloaded with excessive braincells aboard so after about twenty minuets of going around in circles, going backwards and going in compleatly the wrong direction, they finaly made it the 30 meters to the beach. A great achievment going by the state they were in.
They piled into Johns merc and off they went, leaving me all alone with my boat and and a pile of nose bag the size of Mont Blanc. so i proceeded to rack up a line the lengh of the M6 motorway. Just about the time i was snorting past Hilton Park services at 90 miles an hour I heard a noise on the hard shoulder. i sort of came to my senses and realised it was actually a fishing boat next to me with a very rude fisherman shouting get off my bouy and wheres my fucking dinghy? Without once looking him in the eye, I said, sorry mate i hope you dont mind, it was an emergency. One of my crew had an accident and had to be rushed to the hospital, I dont think its too serious they should'nt be long. He said, sorry to hear that mate, i hope he will be ok. no problem, you just wait there then and ill sort out my net while im waiting. Cheers mate, I said, and went back inside to finish my line and crack open another can of carling. This was my first encounter with fishermen. Over the coming month's and years i will grow to hate them with a passion. The sort of hatred I normally reserve for liverpool football club. I myself am an armchair Man u fan and everybody loves us.