Intheboatshed.net regular correspondent Will Stirling and his wife Sara are to sail from Plymouth to the Eddystone Lighthouse and back in an open 14ft clinker dinghy. (See more of the boat here.)
But it’s not for a bet as you might think – it’s to raise money for the charity Wateraid, and to demonstrate the dinghy’s seaworthiness.
Will is an sailing adventurer as well as a historian and boatbuilder – he runs the boatbuilding firm Stirling and Son – and has spent the last five summers sailing in the Arctic, most recently as skipper of the support boat for the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition last year.
In March Sara and Will plan to sail their 14ft dinghy from the Mount Batten Centre
in Plymouth to the Eddystone Light and back, a trip of 24 miles. In fact, it’s to be the first of a series of increasingly adventurous trips that Will intends to make, including one across the English Channel in the dinghy this summer. The third outing is to be a trip through the Magellan Straight, at the southern-most tip of South America.
To sponsor Sara and Will, click here. I’m told a gift of £12 can buy two taps for a village waterpoint, £20 can buy 25 metres of pipe, £46 can buy a family toilet, £50 can buy a hand-pump and £60 can buy a rainwater collection jar.