'Stirred and Shaken...' is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook format and follows Bonny's voyage around the North Atlantic over the period 2023/25.
Follow this link https://amzn.eu/d/0hq7ccFD if you would like to buy the book.
Join Tom and a succession of crew mates as they sail Tom’s old boat Bonny, a ‘Biscay 36’ around the North Atlantic.
The voyage starts in the River Medway on England's south east coast. Bonny is heading for Falmouth with a crew of two, Skipper and owner, Tom is in his late 60s and Mate, and long time sailing buddy, Mick, is a couple of years his senior. Having cruised home waters and the Greek islands, they have both also undertaken a previous Atlantic circuit under on Tom's previous boat, Arctic Smoke, an ‘Elizabethan 33’. Their sea going partnership is rather like that of Jim and Spock of the Starship Enterprise.
Once in Falmouth Tom and Mick are delayed by numerous unanticipated repairs. The summer of 2023 also turns out to be a windy one. As one gale after another sweeps in across the Atlantic the crew despair of ever leaving the UK. Eventually, a small weather window allows them to escape across the Bay of Biscay but not before Tom almost wrecks Bonny and a couple of neighbouring boats as they leave Falmouth in a bit of a blow.
Their destination is Madeira, but Biscay has other ideas and bad weather forces Bonny into Gigon on Spain’s northern Atlantic coast. During the passage the rudder of Bonny’s ancient Hydrovane (a wind operated self steering system - essential kit for short-handed long distance sailing) breaks off for the third time.
In preparation for a hoped-for repair in Vigo further down the coast, the crew remove the Hydrovane assembly. A repair is subsequently made in Vigo and Bonny belatedly heads for Porto Santo and Madeira. In Porto Santo the crew meet two solo sailors, Rob from Essex, who years previously was shipwrecked in a hurricane in the Azores, and Gary from Guernsey who’s at the start of a long muti-year voyage. Both will play important roles in Bonny’s subsequent adventures. After walking Madeira’s dramatic eastern peninsula Tom and Mick undertake a lively passage to Las Palmas in the Canaries during which the Hydrovane rudder fails yet again.
Whilst in Gran Canaria, Tom raids his fast dwindling piggy-bank and installs a new Hydrovane and a Starlink Satellite to receive up to date weather information. Mick and Tom also celebrate Mick’s 70th birthday in San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera.
An almost trouble free passage to Sal in the Cape Verde follows but Mick gets a nasty splinter in his foot which the skipper is unable to completely remove and so Mick visits a local hospital where the splinter is finally extracted. In common with all the islands most people on Sal are poor but as the crew discover they are friendly and self-sufficient. Their experience in the capital, Mindelo is very different and the crew fall victim to a professional hustler as they search the surprisingly well stocked town for tools needed to repair the broken gooseneck fitting (the join between the mast and the boom).
After a brush with the immigration authorities in Mindelo, they encounter UFOs and sargasso on passage to Barbados, and celebrate Christmas at sea. A few miles off Bridgetown, Bonny is becalmed and, disabled by an errant rope around her propeller, only just avoids a large cruise ship on her way into port. The crew find Barbados a colourful and friendly island with an extraordinary bus service. Friends arrive for the short passage to Bequia where further running repairs are required.
Several other Caribbean islands are visited, including Mustique where the crew discover the dark truth about the rich people’s playground; Canouan where dodgy developers abound and where Tom gets up close with a Stingray; Union Island where he falls foul of immigration authorities - again; Carriacou where Tom has a stand-off with a local pirate; Grenada where their neighbours are murdered only metres away; Tobago for a birthday on the beach and St Martin where they bump into Rob again and get very drunk.
Mick unfortunately and unexpectedly has to leave the ship in St Martin and so Tom sails solo to Bermuda, where he's joined for a few weeks by youngest son Vincent for the leg to Nova Scotia. After evading a tropical storm - just; they make port at iconic Shelburne and visit the historical ports of Lunenburg and Halifax. Tom then sails solo to Cape Breton; encounters Nova Scotia’s famous fog and visits wild and isolated anchorages. He continues to the beautiful and peaceful Bras D’or Lake before exploring Newfoundland’s spectacular south coast. There, he discovers the remains of a long abandoned fishing community, before returning to St Peter's, Cape Breton where he leaves Bonny for the winter of 2024/25.
Tom returns to St Peter’s in the spring of 2025 and, after preparing Bonny for sea, sets out on the 200 mile passage to the French island of St Pierre. On the way he slips in the cockpit and damages his foot. After an exciting sail and a challenging arrival at St Pierre he visits the local hospital where he’s told he’s broken his foot and must have a cast fitted. He’s taken in by a friendly American couple on their ocean going motor boat and then spends two weeks with Vincent on board Gary’s boat, Symphony. Tom and Vincent then join the rest of the family for a two week holiday in Cape Breton.
Vincent and older brother Charles remove Tom’s cast in time for him and pal George (an experienced sailor and thrill seeker) to sail Bonny across the Labrador Sea through gales, fog and icebergs to Nanortalik (which, in the Inuit language means, “the place of Polar Bears”) Greenland.
During the latter stages of the passage they have to comply with Greenland’s compulsory ‘GREENPOS’ reporting regulations. These are designed to ensure all vessels are closely monitored so that if required, timely search and rescue resources can be deployed. Unfortunately the system appears to malfunction and for a while the crew aren’t certain whether their reports have been received or not, and anxiety mounts over whether they have unwittingly triggered an unnecessary search and rescue operation.
Fortunately they don’t, but conditions on the approach to Nanortalik are challenging and they sail, on constant iceberg watch, through two full gales and heavy fog. They have to heave-to once to ride out a severe gale and a second time allow another gale to blow through before their arrival. They approach Nanortalik on the back of the gale in thick fog with icebergs appearing suddenly out of the gloom. Then the wind dies. By this time the engine has failed but fortunately George manages to rig up an emergency fuel supply and they are able to motor the last couple of miles through the calm into port.
In Nanortalik Tom and George meet other, much more experienced high latitude sailors; George twists his ankle, leaving them both semi-crippled; and they watch a football tournament on possibly the most spectacular pitch in the world. They discover ancient Herjolfsnes, the site of Erik the Red’s landing on the island in 985 A.D.. Amazingly they find the remains of the Vikings’ first Church at Herjolfsnes and Tom explores their remarkable history.
After her Viking encounter, Bonny continues through the spectacular Prins Christian Sund - the long fiord that cuts across the southern tip of Greenland. Jagged mountain ranges, down which awesome glaciers flow, flank both sides of the Sund as Bonny picks her way tentatively around icebergs, ‘bergy bits’ and ‘growlers’. On their last night in Greenland they witness a spectacular sunset and listen in awe as a huge glacier calves only a mile from their anchorage. The following morning Bonny picks her way through the devastation and approaches the glacier where the crew to soak up the experience of a life-time.
After leaving Greenland, Bonny is chased across the North Atlantic Ocean by ex-hurricane Erin and a succession of sister storms. The temperatures during the first two thirds of the passage are extremely cold as successive depressions suck cold air down from the arctic. The intense cold requires multiple layers of clothing to be worn and takes its toll on Tom’s creaky plumbing. The near constant gales mean Bonny spends almost the entire passage with three reefs in the mainsail, the storm jib in place of the genoa, and the storm screen across the companionway. The crew are forced to heave-to on two occasions when conditions become particularly uncomfortable. During the latter stages of the passage a mysterious leak requires constant pumping to avoid sinking. At the end of the crossing, Bonny batters through the worst seas of the entire voyage to make port in Hugh Town on the isles of Scilly.
Back in Falmouth, Tom waves goodbye to George and sails solo once again for the River Medway. On a blustery night he rounds the Isle of Wight and crosses the busy shipping channel into the eastern Solent. In a sudden squall, and distracted by the need to reduce sail and change course to avoid an outgoing ship, he forgets to switch on Bonny’s navigation lights and receives a polite reprimand. Next he has to weather the treacherous Owers shoals, where Ted Heath’s Morning Cloud was wrecked with the loss of two crew in 1974. The squally conditions persist as Bonny rounds Beachy Head and South Foreland, after then passes Dover and North Foreland, before the final approach to the Medway through numerous sandbanks. He decides to motor the last few miles up the river against what has become a westerly wind, only to discover the engine is on the verge of shaking itself off its mountings. Somehow, an exhausted and befuddled skipper picks up Bonny’s mooring at 0130 on the morning of 11th September 2025, one day before his 38th Wedding Anniversary!
Follow this link to buy the book https://amzn.eu/d/0hq7ccFD
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