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Councillor Matthew Offord is the deputy leader of Barnet Council and Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Hendon. This blog is about his participation in the Fastnet sailing race. |
Matthew Offord »
Sometimes wet, never a Wet
Posted on 8:50am Monday 24th August 2009
As we were up at the front of the boat 4 dolphins kept jumping with the bow of the boat, over and over. It’s good to see such sight but they were probably wondering what we were doing. Once our watch was over and the dolphins gone, I spent some time desperately trying to dry the inside of my boot. Fortunately I mentioned this to Helen who kindly gave me a copy of the Observer. Until then I never thought that the writings of Roy Hattersley had any use but now I am a convert that all his musings should be stuffed into wet boots.
Matthew Offord »
Follow the race online
Posted on 9:56am Tuesday 11th August 2009
You can follow the Fastnet race and the progress of 'Prime Evil' at http://fastnet.rorc.org/2009-fleet-tracking.html (see class IRC 2)
Matthew Offord »
It all has to end up somewhere
Posted on 9:02am Monday 10th August 2009
But it is not just shipping containers which are a hazard, there are other objects to look out for. Most of the rubbish in the sea is plastic composed mainly of fragments of plastic bags and water bottles. You find bottle caps all over the place and micro-fragments of plastic film as well. While many politicians think they are being credible by talking about climate change, that is only one part of the problem our planet faces. Plastic acts as a sponge for toxins in the marine environment, such as pesticides and PCBs, which can then enter the food chain when sea creatures eat the plastic particles.
Matthew Offord »
The starting gun fires on Sunday
Posted on 9:00am Saturday 8th August 2009
It has surprised me how many people have read this blog as I have prepared for the Fastnet race. Rumours have reached me that some have attempted to portray sailing as a rich man’s sport. I am sure there are many people who do have access to lots of money to sail but there are millions more of us who hire yachts or sail in friend’s boats in order to build up the amount of miles we have sailed and gain more experience. Such negative comments simply reinforce how out-of-touch these critics are with normal people.
Matthew Offord »
Struggling with a sextant
Posted on 8:57am Friday 7th August 2009
The problem emerges when the mist comes down or night sailing and this demands that sailors rely on navigational techniques. For hundreds of years this meant using a sextant, a compass and charts. The margin of error in using such techniques was huge and a testament to this is shown by the number of graves around the coast of sailors who met their end in shipwrecks.
Matthew Offord »
Pirates of the Indian Ocean
Posted on 9:23am Tuesday 4th August 2009
Once a drop-off boat and crew have been hired and the weather negotiated, there's another big hurdle: more pirates. Navigating the high seas with a stash of money is not for the fainthearted. Dodging the pirates is only one difficulty - another is to make sure the good guys know what you're up to as well as it's vital that your vessel is not going to be looked at as a pirate vessel, as you might get taken out by a naval vessel.
Matthew Offord »
Is this a border to freedom?
Posted on 7:06pm Monday 27th July 2009
Politics is not a favoured topic on the boat when we go sailing – frankly it’s not much of a favoured topic amongst many people, unless of course they are considering the expenses of MPs, but returning from France Gill asks me about the Conservative Party’s position on e-borders. This is a system that by 2010 aims to cover 95% of all journeys made into the UK by electronically collecting and analysing information from carriers (such as airlines, ferries and rail companies) about everyone who intends to travel to or from the United Kingdom before they travel. The Government claims this is a good idea because it allows the identification - in advance - of passengers who are a potential risk; tell the Immigration Service who plans to cross our border; check travellers against lists of people known to pose a threat; and enable the Immigration Service, the Security Service and the Police to link a person's journeys in order to form a detailed travel history so they can provide background checks to other agencies and compile a profile of suspect passengers and their travel patterns and networks. But will it work?
Matthew Offord »
Diving in the shallow end
Posted on 10:49am Monday 20th July 2009
As a scuba diver who uses ‘normal’ air, I can go down to a depth of 40 metres but there are many people who use a combination of gases which allow them to go deeper. One of these people is an Edgware boy, Mark Ellyat. Mark holds the record for the world's deepest dive reaching 313m in 2004, 35 miles off the coast of Phuket in Thailand after a dive lasting a total of 6 hours and 36 minutes.
Matthew Offord »
Taking on a ro-ro is a no-no
Posted on 5:28pm Monday 6th July 2009
A channel hop is not so difficult – I did the same last December which took about 12 hours but this passage is different. The course is a test of the fleet's ability to race at different wind angles whilst using the tidal effects of the English Channel to speed the passage to France and the crews have to use tactics in order to gain the edge on their opponents.
Matthew Offord »
Harnessing the power of the waves
Posted on 8:42am Friday 26th June 2009
It seems a no-brainer as wave energy not only has a benign effect on the environment but is also cost effective in the production of electricity. But still little work is occurring on introduction of such technology.
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