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One of the reasons we’d come to Belfast was to see one of our favourite bands, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, at the renowned Limelight. We admittedly were a little nervous about the idea. Belfast was once considered one of the world’s most dangerous cities and it’s impossible not to reflect on years of violence covered…

We started the year in the New World, at Charleston in South Carolina, and ended it in the Old World at Falmouth, UK. From January 1st through December 31st, we traveled 6,281 miles at an average speed of 6.9 kts and put 913 hours on our John Deere 6068AFM75. Our main engine now has 9,522…

The Harland and Wolff twin shipbuilding gantry cranes dominate the Belfast skyline and are a notable landmarks on entering Belfast Harbour. Harland and Wolff are a shipbuilding and offshore construction company founded in Belfast in 1861 who built most of the ships for the White Star Line, including the Titanic and its sister ships Olympic…

The Isle of Gigha, just north of the Mull of Kintyre, was our last stop in Scotland. After an early monrning run from Oban, we stopped at Gigha for two nights to wait for a storm system to pass through before continuing south to Ireland. While there we installed the new Rule 3700 bilge pump…

It’s 8:21pm on the 27th and what is going to be an exciting finish is near. Wild Oats XI is only 1,200 feet back of the leading and favored boat Comanche. They are just entering the Derwent River for the run to the finish line. As night approaches, the wind in the River Derwent is…

The famous Neptune’s Staircase is the longest staircase lock in Britain—a series of eight locks carry boats up or down 64 feet over a distance of 180 feet. The typical time to pass through Neptune’s Staircase is about 90 minutes, but the Scottish Canal staff rushed us through in barely 70 minutes so we could…

Six months ago I bolted awake at 1:15am to a shrieking high bilge water alarm while we were 50 miles south of the Grand Banks, in large seas, on passage from Newport, RI to Kinsale, Ireland. The quick summary is we got the problem resolved, but it took 11 hours, and we learned about a…

On our fifth day along the Caledonian Canal, we travelled 15 miles from Laggan through Loch Lochy, passing through two bridges and only one lock. We stopped for two nights at Banavie Top Basin above the famous Neptune’s Staircase and within two miles of the southern terminus of the canal. Banavie Basin is only four…

One of the most beautiful sections of the Caledonian Canal is near Laggan, where the trees grow right up to the water’s edge and extend over the water. The fall colours made the scene even more impressive. We liked this section of the canal so much that we later walked from Laggan all the way…

Loch Ness is one of the top three tourist destinations in Scotland, along with Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye. Second to Nessie, a major draw of Loch Ness is 13th-century Urquhart Castle. One of the largest castles in Scotland, Urquhart attracted some 400,000 visitors in 2016. On our third day in the Caledonian Canal,…