Trans-Atlantic delivery

bilbobaggins

bilbobaggins

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Just been peering at this Latesail offering and wondering what happened to the arcane world of delivery skippers.

Would anyone here fork out nearly £6k to take on responsibility for an unknown Bavaria 50, and a transat?

Trip.jpg


OTOH, if any forumeer considers putting together a team, as an alternative to Cherbourg, then 'I know a man' with all the RYA bits of paper, and even a 'sun gun'....

....but who won't dare ask Moody Nick for a reference! :D
 
What, getting paid £6k to do the delivery?

Or paying somebody £6k for the privilege of delivering there boat back? (There must be some right gullible people about!)

In fact I just found a great charter oppertunity for my boat. Never mind the odd weekend/race week. Waste of time. Somebody pays me £6k (or full price at £18k) to take her to the sunshine. I sail her there with bikinis and rum. Then somebody pays me £6k (or full price at £18k) to bring her back. Brilliant, why have I never seen this opportunity before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If only!
 
So the Hobbit has built up a collection of sextants and now wishes to smuggle this technology out of the country to some foreign power. To cover his tracks he intends to use a large charter boat as a means of transport and he wants you to assist without knowing the true reason for the voyage. This all smacks of a Sheffield Forgemasters type of scandal :eek:

BB your game is up, the big black rib from customs is on your tail.

Pete
 
I can just see it now.... checking-in at Heathrow for my flight to Rodney Bay, clutching my collection of sextants.

"Why are you carrying all those sextants, sir?" "Because I'm a nervous and untrusting passenger...." :)

BTW, d'you know where Rodney Bay is? And Alcudia/Port Mahon? If so, you're hired!

:cool:
 
bilbobaggins said:
BTW, d'you know where Rodney Bay is? And Alcudia/Port Mahon? If so, you're hired! :cool:
Click to expand...

Certainly do, thought about climbing to the hill fort on Pigeon Island but it was hot so went for a swim in the bay instead, hoping of course that all those rich expat yachties who are wintering the recession in the sun had fitted holding tanks.

Alcudia, why would you want to go there? :confused: don't they arrest innocent people and impound yachts just for visiting for a few weeks. Far to dangerous, best stay in St Lucia :)

Pete
 
BB, I see a superb business opportunity here. You need to book 9 first class tickets on Virgin airlines (because they have the nicest flight attendants) to the Caribbean and then sell 8 of these places as part of the Astro School - bilbobaggins Organisation www.ASBO.Com Judging by the response on the other recent threads there is clearly a demand.


A brown envelope to the airline captain and senior air traffic controller should see you taking off at twelve noon. With a bit of work on the throttles and a tail wind the captain should be able to keep the aircraft precisely at noon local time for most of the trip across. This means that students will have hours to practise taking noon sights on a stable platform rather than a rolling foredeck.

Should the captain be uncertain of his position then you will have lots of students with an hours practise taking sights to advise him of his errors. He will be most grateful for this I am sure :rolleyes:

This should mean you arrive in Rodney Bay free for the price of a couple of hour instructional work. You can then implement Part 2 of the plan, which involves someone else paying for the privilege of sailing a boat 4000 miles to windward, sort of rough weather mile builder trip :)
 
Now that's a good idea. Why did I not think of that....?

It could be rather fun to run a Navigation Masterclass on the 'Upper Class' deck of one of that nice Mr. Branson's shiny Virgin Atlantic 4-jets.

It's coincidental that, just this morning, I was confirming with a certain 'learned society' that their ancient aircraft 'bubble sextant' was, unlike mine, completely stuffed. Maybe it's due for a new home, or one last outing.....


IMG_0116.jpg



We could regale the 'drivers, airframe' with hoary tales of transoceanic Pressure Pattern Technique and 3-Drift Winds - the stuff of legend - and amuse ourselves tuning into far-distant radio transmitters, 'finding the null' bearings, correcting for Earth and Chart Convergency and plotting the resultant RDF Lines of Position onto Transverse Mercators, Mead's Gnomonic, and even Lambert's Conformal charts ( provided we can clear a drinks trolley for service as a chart table ).

At those working altitudes, some of the 57 Navigational Stars and 'Wanderers' would be visible through the 'scope, so the more adventurous of us could go hunting for that rare acme, a 'simultaneous' Sun/Venus/Star Astro Fix.

We might even get VO5 interested, if we could find a place to stow his Deep Sea Lead, Flinders Bars and Backstaff . :D

Finally, an Astro Homing from 500nm out, into the 'overhead' and a max rate procedural letdown within the 'cone of silence' onto "Short Finals, Three Greens, to Land."

Ah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.... :D
 
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