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CAPTAIN BUNGLE'S ODYSSEY a must have for any sailing enthusiast!

 TAKI in The Spectator writes:

"Paddy Macklin (he was named after the great Paddy Leigh Fermor), a book on his singlehanded round-the-world odyssey in a…27ft boat. Now I’ve done my share of dangerous sports — polo, boxing, karate tournaments and even skiing the front face of a Swiss mountain that is now closed because a fall means instant death — but the idea of going around the world in a 27ft boat is as alien to me as marrying a male friend. This takes a kind of long-term courage only true heroes have. On-the-spur-of-a-moment heroics are far easier, like charging an enemy with a bayonet, or jumping out of an airplane yelling Geronimo, but leaving dry land with a second-hand satphone bought on eBay, a hand-operated desalination pump, and nothing in the way of navigational aids is slow, agonising suicide, at least in my book.

Captain Bungle’s Odyssey is published by Podkin Press and this week was launched at the Royal Thames Yacht Club. To spend 379 days at sea is an incredible achievement in itself, but I was especially interested in the fact that Paddy found time to do 100 squats a day, and in clement weather in the tropics 32 circuits of the deck, which is approximately half a kilometre. ‘The only clue I had that humanity existed was the radio.’ While navigating in the Pacific he listened to radio Cuba, and when sailing in the Atlantic it was mostly religious programmes. Good for you, Paddy: 379 days without porn and crappy gossip about ghastly celebrities must cleanse one’s soul as well as one’s body and mind.

Paddy Macklin...A real Sir Galahad, like his dad, in that old-fashioned eccentric way of Englishmen before they became slaves and took orders from Brussels."

Review of Captain Bungle's Odyssey in CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2014  "Ripping sea yarn!"

  "This one's different though, chiefly in the quality of its observations, very original and copious photography, and artwork..and it's about a voyage actually worth reporting: round-the-world solo in a 27ft(8.2m) wooden Buchanan yacht (a Clyde Cruising Club 6 1/2 Tonner) in an effort to beat Robin Knox-Johnston's record of 312 days set in 1968-1969 aboard the 32ft (9.8m) Suhaili. That sounds refreshingly unambitious on the face of it, but even today 45 years on from Suhaili's record, sailing around the world non-stop, solo and south of the three great capes, is no joke. In fact, in a boat of similar size and vintage, it's almost unheard of, and Paddy came within a whisker of losing his life.

  In the Southern Ocean, Paddy suffered a  prolonged episode so awful as to be by his own admission, indescribable. With a gale that averaged 45-50 knots for 48 hours, he was chased by what appeared as "100ft cliffs approaching". Paddy suffered at least six knockdowns within the space of a few hours, with two of them "probably", and then "certainly", 360 degree rolls. It says something for the mayhem of being tossed like a cork in white water that he cannot be certain. The second 360 degree was sufficiently severe to occasion a stop in New Zealand for repairs. Two more complete rolls follow, then "the next 22 days were the same". he reached NZ safely to complete his voyage, so no record for Paddy and his yacht Tessa, but no less of a ripping sea yarn for it.  SMH."