1/32: Preparing for The Great Motorboat Tour

Join adventurers John Boyle and Fionn Crow Howieson as they prepare for their epic voyage around the British Isles. Before leaving Falmouth they undertake final checks... maps and charts and get a briefing from an engineer about all things mechanical. The challenge starts here... with 31 further weekly video diaries to follow… For Full Video Transcript: 1/32 Preparing for The Great Motorboat Tour Sponsored by Haven Knox-Johnston To introduce myself, I’m John Boyle. I’m a 56 year old former lawyer, now turned underwater film maker. I’ve been making underwater films for about 20 years. National Geographic are my agents and I have produced about 30 underwater films in that time with them, which I have sold to world wide television. But I have never ever had an adventure like this one. Fionn Crow Hawieson is my crewman. Fionn has worked for about 15 years with me on the underwater films. He is also an underwater diver, crewman and he also edits all of the films. Along the way Fionn is also going to be principal cameraman - as well as being crewman, he is going to be editing the podcasts, he’s going to be doing the photography so we are going to keep him pretty busy for the trip. This is our home port, Port Pendennis Marina in Falmouth and this is where my boat, Shark Bay, 34ft Sealine has been birthed for the past 7 years. Our usual cruising grounds are West of the Scillies, East to Salcombe and beyond, across the channel occasionally to Cherbourg where we have got the Channel Islands. We have never really gone any further than that. Until now, where we have had the idea to take the boat all the way around the coast of Britain, round the North of Scotland, and down the West Coast of Ireland before coming back round Lands End and back home to Port Pendennis. It’s an amazing adventure, neither Fionn or I have ever done anything like it and today is the day we are going to do it. It’s 3pm on Tuesday 19th April 2011. We are just waiting for the tide - we have got another hour or so before the tide gets to high tide, the loch gates open and we can head east. Adrian’s the marine engineer who has looked after Shark Bay from new. He has come along to advise us how to deal with some of the small mechanical problems we might encounter along the way. If you don’t stress about it, if you don’t rush it becomes self-explanatory. It’s very self-explanatory. OK, once you have done all that, you have got this belt off and this belt off. It’s all quite clear in the book. Yeah, it’s all very clear in the book, yeah. You have got a bit of sense about you with this stuff, you know what it looks like. You’re lucky to have another engine. So literally that’s the engine and electrics. Yeah so that literally shuts the whole electric system down. If that pops out, nothing will operate. OK. You know about the oil level and that is self-explanatory and that’s about it really. And how do you feel about coming to Scotland in a few weeks’ time for a service? If you need to, not a problem. Not next week, I’m too busy next week. Well, we are hoping that for at least a week we will get by. You’ll be fine, you are fully serviced up. I have crossed the “I”s and dotted the “T”s. If that’s the way round? Thanks mate, thanks for coming down. Thanks and be safe.