Sorry for the long gaps between these blogs, it’s been a very busy few months with my work at Lupine Travel culminating in a large amount of press and media surrounding a train trip from Wigan to North Korea we’ve been working on. Coverage at links here in The Times, The Independent and the BBC.

I’ve got some blogs in draft that I’m working on with images and videos of visits I’ve made this year to Socotra Island in Yemen as well as Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific so I should have these ready soon.

The reason for this post, I’ve just returned from a trip across the English channel and back on an incredible carbon fibre hulled Volvo 70 ocean racing yacht which I’ve made a short video of below that I thought you might enjoy. I made the trip as I’m planning to take the same boat across the Atlantic as part of the ARC 2020 race from Gran Canaria to Antigua. It’s been a dream of mine for many years to sail the Atlantic, not the cheapest thing to do as part of a racing crew, but I’ve decided to finally make it happen.

We’ve got aims of making the 2,700 nautical mile journey in 11 days working an sleeping in a 4 hours on, 4 hours off pattern, standing a good chance of placing  highly in the 200+ yachts competing. I was keen to try out the spartan conditions before committing to the race, keep your eyes peeled for the ultralight carbon fibre toilet located around 1 metre away from the cooking facilities…

If you’re keen to book a trip on this boat, or one like it, check out Kraken Travel and they’ll be happy to help :).