On or around May 1, Charlie Tongue, Allan Collison, Paddy Smyth and Richard Bevan will be leaving St Lucia in the Caribbean to sail to Europe. We will be aboard Neroli, a Hallberg Rassy 42 built in Sweden in 1999.

Neroli has a 76 HP Volvo TMD22 engine, a diesel generator, radar and a water maker. Communications equipment includes SSB and VHF Radios and an Iridium satellite telephone. Accommodation includes cabins fore and aft, a large saloon with two more berths, galley with cooker, fridge and freezer and two separate heads (bathrooms) with showers.

A four-person team (Charlie, Francoise, Paddy and Richard) are in St Lucia preparing Neroli for the trip. On April 25, Francoise will fly home to England (ash permitting) and the rest of us will leave for Antigua. We’ll collect Allan, top up on supplies (especially fresh fruit and vegetables) and set sail for Europe on or around May 1.

There’s quite a bit to be done before the 25th – to put it mildly; more on that in due course. Meanwhile, here’s a very brief introduction to the crew.

Charlie Tongue has been sailing for most of his life. In the 10 years that he’s owned Neroli he’s sailed her from Scandinavia to England, Turkey and Croatia; and across the Atlantic in 2008. He’s also upgraded, repaired, refurbished or replaced pretty much every one of the multiple mechanical, electrical and electronic systems aboard to the point where he understands most of them and has personal relationships with suppliers of obscure components on most continents. He’s a thoughtful and meticulous skipper who cares about his crew almost as much as he does about the output temperature of the generator heat-exchanger. He’s working very hard (usually below decks in extreme heat and humidity) to get Neroli into peak condition for this trip.

Allan Collison is another experienced skipper who has taken his own boat across the Atlantic to the Caribbean (also in 2008) and then back again. The return trip was a solo effort and although it was thoroughly successful he did form the opinion that a variation on a diet of spam and baked beans would be appealing. He’s in Antigua for the annual Classics Week and will join the crew when Neroli gets to Antigua at the end of this month. Allan brings tremendous sailing experience to our crew and will be able to provide strong support and guidance to the skipper.

Paddy Smyth has a good working knowledge of Nepali and is an expert on altitude sickness, skills that we very much hope won’t be called for on this voyage. He’s also an anaesthetist (recently retired – he brought the date forward so that he could join this trip) and is Neroli’s Chief Medical Officer. Paddy has owned a Halcyon 27 and has many years of experience sailing it around the south coast and English Channel. In the last few days he’s proved to be an extraordinary problem-solver, repairing or upgrading a diverse set of equipment, including the tender’s floor, the apartment dishwasher, the emergency grab-bag, the tackle on the lifebelt drogue (aka the spurlash – please check with your local chandlery for the exact meaning of this nautical term), the fishing reel and Francoise’s broken sandal-strap. Paddy’s wife Viv was to join us here to assist in the preparations but sadly was trapped in the UK by the Icelandic volcanic ash.

Richard Bevan joins Neroli with somewhat slimmer sailing credentials, although he’s sailed irregularly for many years and cautiously skippers family expeditions around the San Juan Islands. A week on Neroli in Croatia was not sufficient to deter Charlie from issuing an invitation although not much to do with sailing appears on the job description. He is in charge of provisioning and with extraordinary support from Francoise has been buying, repackaging, cooking, freezing and generally making a tremendous mess in the kitchen. He enjoys elite Platinum Frequent Shopper status at the St Lucia supermarket. He also has the task of maintaining the blog.

Francoise Tongue won’t be aboard for the crossing but is very much part of the crew. She has great skills and experience in many aspects of the venture, especially those involving cooking, storage and stowing, making friends with the locals, shopping, negotiating the bus system, dealing with the markets and generally ensuring that we don’t take this all too seriously. She is due to fly back to England on 25th April (when everyone else also leaves for England but by a rather slower method) and the question of volcanic ash has been exercising her not a little. But at last count the flights seem likely to be operating again

Blog entries will be intermittent for the next few days but we will aim to post at least a brief entry on most days once we leave Antigua.