Jack Crow

AndrewB

AndrewB

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We passed by this guy today, an Ozzy (by his accent), sailing a yellow Mirror Dinghy from the Black Sea to Venice (he hopes). There was only a chance for a few words as we passed. The wind was getting up to F6 ... a bit of a handful for a Mirror! Has anyone else come across him, or know anything more?
 
No, its the same guy, Sandy Mackinnon, that wrote the original book 20 years ago.
He keeps a Facebook page updated regularly with his trip reports, and I really hope he writes another book about this trip. Ironically, I remember it being sugegsted on here that the journey the book was about never actually happened and was just a made up yarn :) :).
And here he is, 20+ year’s older, making another ballsy voyage.
 
I reviewed "The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow" on Amazon. My main comment was that you could tell the guy was a school teacher from the style of the prose, which was exactly the style my English teacher encouraged and which I resisted (I prefer a more factual, concise style). I did once write a piece in the style he encouraged, just to show I could, and then reverted to my former style! There's also a lot of gaps - for example, somehow, following the various disasters he always seemed to meet the exact right person to help out. Further, it's obvious he had an income - despite pleading poverty in places, he always seemed able to take a day off in a hotel and returned to England on occasion. However, I found his account of Serbia quite chilling.
 
I had this great idea when I was younger and had been travelling around India a few times. A circumnavigation by dinghy. Import a couple of dinghies to Bombay, travel with them by road on one of their mad trucks (probably sitting on the roof of the cab as they do) to the upper part of the Ganges where it comes onto the plains. Sail down the Ganges to Calcutta and into the bay of Bengal. Sail them the 2000 miles around India and back to Bombay. I was used to spending 6 months there at a time so it was time wise doable and they have nice steady shore breezes being a reliably hot country, so the sailing would have been nice if the season was well chosen. Beaching every night at an unfamiliar spot would have been a learning experience. No detailed maps of the coast exist since independence due to the border dispute with Sri Lanka. I got as far as going to the India Office in London to get copies of older maps which were still the best. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone adventurous enough to do it with me, it was before the internet made finding like minded people easy, and it didn't happen.

Instead when already in India I found someone adventurous enough to row for 2 weeks the 220 miles down the Brahmaputra from Dibrugarh to Guwahati in a 19ft wooden boat we bought for £30. For scale this river is the longest in Asia, when still a thousand miles from the sea the river bed is averaging around 10km wide, like here 26°25'58.1"N 92°11'02.0"E It wasn't full of water outside monsoon season but every year the channels are different so there were no maps, there was no commercial transport up or down river and we couldn't find any information of any history of that so we had no idea if there might be cataracts like on the Nile, no one knew and it was pre-google, so it was adventure as the God intended! It was the first year tourists were allowed in Assam without an official guide so we knew we were the first ones doing it. Here's me on the boat. We were dressed local as there was some issues at the time with a terrorist organization (ULFA) that liked kidnapping foreigners for ransom. Got arrested twice, once at gun point which was a relief because we thought they were bandits we'd been told about, another time arrested so we could stay in their police station for a few days and buy in the booze. We had a tiger roaring just across the other bank one night when we ended up next to a national park, sounded like it was standing next to us. A fine adventure but I do wish I'd done that circumnavigation as well.

DSC00039 rotated.JPG
 
Athomson said:
I had this great idea when I was younger and had been travelling around India a few times. A circumnavigation by dinghy. Import a couple of dinghies to Bombay, travel with them by road on one of their mad trucks (probably sitting on the roof of the cab as they do) to the upper part of the Ganges where it comes onto the plains. Sail down the Ganges to Calcutta and into the bay of Bengal. Sail them the 2000 miles around India and back to Bombay. I was used to spending 6 months there at a time so it was time wise doable and they have nice steady shore breezes being a reliably hot country, so the sailing would have been nice if the season was well chosen. Beaching every night at an unfamiliar spot would have been a learning experience. No detailed maps of the coast exist since independence due to the border dispute with Sri Lanka. I got as far as going to the India Office in London to get copies of older maps which were still the best. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone adventurous enough to do it with me, it was before the internet made finding like minded people easy, and it didn't happen.

Instead when already in India I found someone adventurous enough to row for 2 weeks the 220 miles down the Brahmaputra from Dibrugarh to Guwahati in a 19ft wooden boat we bought for £30. For scale this river is the longest in Asia, when still a thousand miles from the sea the river bed is averaging around 10km wide, like here 26°25'58.1"N 92°11'02.0"E It wasn't full of water outside monsoon season but every year the channels are different so there were no maps, there was no commercial transport up or down river and we couldn't find any information of any history of that so we had no idea if there might be cataracts like on the Nile, no one knew and it was pre-google, so it was adventure as the God intended! It was the first year tourists were allowed in Assam without an official guide so we knew we were the first ones doing it. Here's me on the boat. We were dressed local as there was some issues at the time with a terrorist organization (ULFA) that liked kidnapping foreigners for ransom. Got arrested twice, once at gun point which was a relief because we thought they were bandits we'd been told about, another time arrested so we could stay in their police station for a few days and buy in the booze. We had a tiger roaring just across the other bank one night when we ended up next to a national park, sounded like it was standing next to us. A fine adventure but I do wish I'd done that circumnavigation as well.

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What a fantastic adventure. I'd have done the circumnavigation with you! If only...
 
jlavery said:
What a fantastic adventure. I'd have done the circumnavigation with you! If only...
Click to expand...
I bet its never been done still. Its easy to think all the adventures in the world have been done, going to poles common now, Everest, everywhere is mapped now etc but there's always something new that could be done or in a different way. Young men need adventures. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad springs to mind.
 
jlavery said:
David Pyle set off from Langstone Sailing Club in a Drascombe Lugger, heading for Australia. His parents lived opposite us in Emsworth. I just about remember seeing him leave (I was about 4). My dad gets a name check in the book!

Australia the Hard Way: Pyle, David: 9781907206481: Amazon.com: Books

Just found this, will have to watch it:
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Brilliant stuff. I found all sorts of books like that scanning the shelves of charity shops. I just imagine what made it to print can't be more than 0.0001% of the things people have done while others have been watching the telly.
 
jlavery said:
David Pyle set off from Langstone Sailing Club in a Drascombe Lugger, heading for Australia. His parents lived opposite us in Emsworth. I just about remember seeing him leave (I was about 4). My dad gets a name check in the book!

Australia the Hard Way: Pyle, David: 9781907206481: Amazon.com: Books

Just found this, will have to watch it:
Click to expand...
Just watched this - brilliant. Fascinating footage of the Middle East and beyond in what looks like the 1960s. The sailing dhows in particular are a beautiful sight.
 
Athomson said:
I had this great idea when I was younger and had been travelling around India a few times. A circumnavigation by dinghy. Import a couple of dinghies to Bombay, travel with them by road on one of their mad trucks (probably sitting on the roof of the cab as they do) to the upper part of the Ganges where it comes onto the plains. Sail down the Ganges to Calcutta and into the bay of Bengal. Sail them the 2000 miles around India and back to Bombay. I was used to spending 6 months there at a time so it was time wise doable and they have nice steady shore breezes being a reliably hot country, so the sailing would have been nice if the season was well chosen. Beaching every night at an unfamiliar spot would have been a learning experience. No detailed maps of the coast exist since independence due to the border dispute with Sri Lanka. I got as far as going to the India Office in London to get copies of older maps which were still the best. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone adventurous enough to do it with me, it was before the internet made finding like minded people easy, and it didn't happen.

Instead when already in India I found someone adventurous enough to row for 2 weeks the 220 miles down the Brahmaputra from Dibrugarh to Guwahati in a 19ft wooden boat we bought for £30. For scale this river is the longest in Asia, when still a thousand miles from the sea the river bed is averaging around 10km wide, like here 26°25'58.1"N 92°11'02.0"E It wasn't full of water outside monsoon season but every year the channels are different so there were no maps, there was no commercial transport up or down river and we couldn't find any information of any history of that so we had no idea if there might be cataracts like on the Nile, no one knew and it was pre-google, so it was adventure as the God intended! It was the first year tourists were allowed in Assam without an official guide so we knew we were the first ones doing it. Here's me on the boat. We were dressed local as there was some issues at the time with a terrorist organization (ULFA) that liked kidnapping foreigners for ransom. Got arrested twice, once at gun point which was a relief because we thought they were bandits we'd been told about, another time arrested so we could stay in their police station for a few days and buy in the booze. We had a tiger roaring just across the other bank one night when we ended up next to a national park, sounded like it was standing next to us. A fine adventure but I do wish I'd done that circumnavigation as well.

View attachment 160209
Click to expand...
Excellent voyage. How about writing it up for the Marine Quarterly? My own voyage, the considerably less dramatic Worst Journey in the Midlands, about which I wrote a book (still available on kindle, since you ask, and according to the intrepid McKinnon a source for his Jack de Crow) was a journey from the source of the Severn to the Houses of Parliament in a Victorian dinghy during the wettest October on record. Powerfully character-building.
AntarcticPilot said:
I reviewed "The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow" on Amazon. My main comment was that you could tell the guy was a school teacher from the style of the prose, which was exactly the style my English teacher encouraged and which I resisted (I prefer a more factual, concise style). I did once write a piece in the style he encouraged, just to show I could, and then reverted to my former style! There's also a lot of gaps - for example, somehow, following the various disasters he always seemed to meet the exact right person to help out. Further, it's obvious he had an income - despite pleading poverty in places, he always seemed able to take a day off in a hotel and returned to England on occasion. However, I found his account of Serbia quite chilling.
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samsonioni said:
Excellent voyage. How about writing it up for the Marine Quarterly? My own voyage, the considerably less dramatic Worst Journey in the Midlands, about which I wrote a book (still available on kindle, since you ask, and according to the intrepid McKinnon a source for his Jack de Crow) was a journey from the source of the Severn to the Houses of Parliament in a Victorian dinghy during the wettest October on record. Powerfully character-building.
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That rings a fairly big bell, I might have read it moons ago.

I can only remember the highlights of my river trip by now so left it a bit late to write it up.

The most dangerous moment was on the train getting there. 50+ hour journey from Delhi even by "express" train. I got off the train to find tea at an early morning stop. It took longer than usual and the train started pulling away. No rush I thought as usually you can just jump on the step and open the door. Trouble was I jumped on a luggage carriage and the door was locked. I was already near the front part of the platform so by the time I realised I wasn't getting in, and there was no one there, we were getting speed up on a high embankment through some fields. It was a bit chilly so I didn't expect I could stay on indefinitely and being an express train it was faster with less stops than usual Indian trains. The train was crossing a lot of irrigation channels and I was on there long enough to contemplate the arc I'd make, and therefore the distance before that I'd have to jump off to land in the water of one of them. I imagined I'd end up splayed on the far bank instead. Weirdly I don't remember experiencing any fear throughout this.

After a while the train slowed down enough that I could think about being able to jump off. I didn't want to miss an opportunity as they often slowed down then sped up again for no apparent reason, so I had to decide when it was just about slow enough and then safely got down onto the track. When the next carriage passed I pulled myself up and thankfully it was at an unlocked door. Maybe because of that hyper alertness you have in those situations I was fully aware of how Roger Moore it was for the Englishman to be coming in the door of a moving train in the middle of nowhere and the look on the face of the Indian who stopped brushing his teeth at the corridor sink showed me he knew it too. I just wished I had a tie to straighten.


edit to add: I just looked for your book on Amazon and see you have a big back catalogue of nautical prose. Well done that man (y)
 
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Athomson said:
That rings a fairly big bell, I might have read it moons ago.

I can only remember the highlights of my river trip by now so left it a bit late to write it up.

The most dangerous moment was on the train getting there. 50+ hour journey from Delhi even by "express" train. I got off the train to find tea at an early morning stop. It took longer than usual and the train started pulling away. No rush I thought as usually you can just jump on the step and open the door. Trouble was I jumped on a luggage carriage and the door was locked. I was already near the front part of the platform so by the time I realised I wasn't getting in, and there was no one there, we were getting speed up on a high embankment through some fields. It was a bit chilly so I didn't expect I could stay on indefinitely and being an express train it was faster with less stops than usual Indian trains. The train was crossing a lot of irrigation channels and I was on there long enough to contemplate the arc I'd make, and therefore the distance before that I'd have to jump off to land in the water of one of them. I imagined I'd end up splayed on the far bank instead. Weirdly I don't remember experiencing any fear throughout this.

After a while the train slowed down enough that I could think about being able to jump off. I didn't want to miss an opportunity as they often slowed down then sped up again for no apparent reason, so I had to decide when it was just about slow enough and then safely got down onto the track. When the next carriage passed I pulled myself up and thankfully it was at an unlocked door. Maybe because of that hyper alertness you have in those situations I was fully aware of how Roger Moore it was for the Englishman to be coming in the door of a moving train in the middle of nowhere and the look on the face of the Indian who stopped brushing his teeth at the corridor sink showed me he knew it too. I just wished I had a tie to straighten.


edit to add: I just looked for your book on Amazon and see you have a big back catalogue of nautical prose. Well done that man (y)
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Excellent!
 
Just came across this guy. No footage from the journey unfortunately but he's gone around Ireland in a Laser 2000. Having windsurfer around the UK and Europe. Why?? Because its there! I guess. He'd be just the man for going around India...

 
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