Andy Reid and Cherie Davis

Hi, I’m Andy Reid and thought I should start this profile article with a little information about me.

I have been involved with community work through the Scouting movement since I was a Scout as a child.  I have held various leadership roles such as Scout Leader, Assistant District Commissioner and I am currently Group Scout Leader of my local group. I am also involved in the County Water Activities Committee and the Kent Water Activities Fellowship (www.waterscouts.org).

Through Scouting I was first introduced to Water Activities and particularly sailing. At the age of 13 I attended an introductory Dinghy Sailing Course at Bewl Reservoir and am now a Senior Dinghy Sailing Instructor and Powerboat Instructor. Since being involved with the Lively Lady project I have now gained my RYA Coastal Skipper qualification.

I first got to know Alan Priddy through an internet forum called ‘Ribnet’ who were following his preparation for an ambitious attempt to set a new record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by sea in a 10m RIB called ‘Spirit of Cardiff’. A group of us went down to Cardiff to escort Alan and crew out as they left and my thoughts were somewhere in between “what a bunch of madmen” and “wow, my hero’s”! I watched their progress via regular updates on the Ribnet forum as their voyage progressed and gave them some support by buying a few miles. They were doing so well and overcoming so many hardships when the trip had to be cut short. This upset me greatly and I went to meet Alan at Heathrow when he returned to show my support.

Following on from this, I encouraged my fiancée Chérie to invite Alan to give a talk at a flare demonstration day we were arranging for the Kent Scout water activities team in April 2004. And from here we became friends.

Shortly after this, Chérie and I then spent a day with Alan onboard Spirit in the Solent and talked about the Lively Lady project. I expressed an interest in being involved as a co-skipper and Alan challenged me to sell 100 miles and then I would qualify!!!

We then joined Lively Lady and Alan at the London Boat Show for a few days in January 2005 and the good news was that between us we sold close to 100 miles along with the donations we were given. This is when I first learnt Lively Lady’s and Sir Alec’s history and heritage as I then recited it to 100’s of visitors to the boat show! It was here that I first became aware of people’s reaction to Lively Lady. It was always ‘wow’ and people always said they felt so privileged to come on board. Mostly these were older people but I won’t forget they young lad (in his 20’s) who was dragging his girlfriend in tow and he appeared to almost have tears in his eyes. My reaction was along the lines of “what do you know about Sir Alec and Lively Lady?” which of course I kept to myself and as he talked to me he explained that when he was very young, his favorite bed-time book was “Around The World With Lively Lady”; the book written by Sir Alec for children. Going on board was a dream come true for him and when he and his rather bemused girlfriend left, needless to say, he gave a hefty donation! This was also the first time I spent a night onboard Lively Lady and I must say what a surreal experience to be lying in a bunk, all alone and reading ‘My Lively Lady’ surrounded by that smell of old wood and diesel, so familiar to all who are lucky enough to have sailed on her. I was practically in tears as I could so easily imagine what Sir Alec (or just plain Alec Rose at that point!) was describing and going through. I think a real connection was formed at that moment between me and the old girl!

That summer was the International Festival of the Sea and the Fleet Review in Portsmouth. I was lucky enough to join Alan onboard for the review; in fact this was the first time I had been on Lively Lady outside of a marina! It was a little rough and even though I was not sick, I did understand what people meant be ‘Lively Lady’s peculiar’ motion! It was amazing to be part of that sail past HMS Endurance, even if the Queen had gone inside by then. We then spent a few days inside the docks at IFOS, trying to sell the project and tell people about it. We were rather over-shadowed by another display whose name I won’t mention, but did do very well. I do remember one panic trip out to B&Q where I bought myself a lovely new pop-up gazebo. It kept the weather off of us there. Strangely, I have not seen the gazebo since but do hear stories of it ‘popping-up’ at subsequent fundraising events. I’m sure we will be reunited one day. This was also when Alan met Princess Anne and the idea of the ‘Slipper Challenge’ was vocalised. If you want to know about the meaning of this, you will need to ask Alan yourself.

During the following August we held the famous ‘Slipper challenge’ race in the Solent with Gipsy Moth IV and Sir Robin Knox Johnson in Suhali. I was not onboard, but was helming a 5m RIB with a big outboard, chauffeuring the photographer and other guests around. It was from one of these photos that the painting of the 3 historic boats was taken, of which many of you undoubtedly have a print! One strange moment here was when leaving Gunwharf Quay to meet the boats; I had to radio the harbormaster (QHM) for permission to leave. I called them up and frantically searched the tubes of the RIB for her name but found it did not have one. And so ‘tender to Lively Lady’ was born, a large powerboat asking for permission to leave to west Solent to support a 36ft wooden sailing boat!

And then finally, the 28th July 2006 was the day for Lively Lady and her crew to depart. I had borrowed a Kent Scout RIB this time and was the lead support craft. Alan had a great idea that as Lively Lady is very hard to maneuver in tight spaces, that when it was time to cast off from the jetty in Gunwharf that I should pull her sideways using lines attached on her bow and aft decks. This was the point that we both became aware that long-keel boats don’t go sideways! She started moving backwards getting very close to squashing a little yellow fiberglass boat moored behind her and there was nothing I could do! So we just dumped the tow lines and somehow Alan very skillfully got her moving forwards and turning the right direction, did not touch any other boats and Lively Leady left with the cheering audience being none the wiser to what had very nearly happened. We followed her down the Solent and after a tearful farewell were the last boat to wave her off and turn back for home.

As you all know, she made very good progress and come November 2006 was my turn to fly out to meet her in Miami for the leg to Jamaica and then a crew-change and on to Panama through the canal.

So Miami, Florida to Kingston Jamaica. Sounds like a lovely trip. A gentle sail in the Caribbean? How wrong can you be!!!

Leaving Miami on November 26th we had a brilliant start to the trip. We were sailing a nice reach, had kindly been given a fishing rod and Jack and Michael (the young adult crew on this leg) caught a couple of Bonito (we think!). Then Tuesday came, the winds picked up, came around from the East and the sails got smaller. This lasted for 5 days. Tacking, tacking and more tacking. Cuba was nice to see at first, but when after one watch we realised we had not made much ground, things did start to get a little depressing. Everything was wet inside and outside the boat. The question to wear waterproofs or not was tough. Do I keep the spray and wind off myself or just sweat gallons because all the time it was so warm? A tough choice to make. Sleeping was also tough. We had the Gore-Tex bivi bags, but it was too hot in the cabin to sleep in those. We had the Chinese water torture where the boat dripped on us very nicely. And from different place on the different tacks and so you couldn’t keep dry even when you slept. The mattresses eventually got wet and so you even got damp from below. And living in this environment, is this where I mention the salt sores and rashes that develop on your skin? Anywhere that anything rubbed got very uncomfortable but I will leave the exact location of the worst sores up to your own imagination!

Lively Lady does not like to beat to windward, and with our huge leeway on the port tack (but strangely not on the starboard tack!) we were lucky to make 150 degrees between tacks at this time. The spray was big, at times the waves were huge. It was a very uncomfortable ride. It was impossible to safely use the stove while underway, and so once a day we stopped and hoved-to to refuel and cook something, just hoping that we were not losing too much or our precious headway against the wind and sea.

This was all a new experience to me. As I said earlier, I have been in small boats for years now, mainly through the Scout Association and am now a RYA Dinghy Senior Instructor and Powerboat Instructor. I have over the last couple of years been ‘converting’ my skills to big boats and as an RYA Coastal Skipper. I was apprehensive before we left, relaxed over the first couple of days and then spent almost 5 days in a state of high anxiety. We did see a small pod of dolphins for about a minute which was a great morale booster but very short lived. We had a lot of problems with bits of the boat breaking, but it did seem to be one thing after another. A definite character building experience.

Finally it was Friday and the end of Cuba was within spitting distance and so the next obstacle to come our way was the sail track holding the sail to the mast being in a very sorry state. A lot of the rivets holding the track to the mast had failed so that the track sprang away from the mast in various places. We could not risk trying to raise or lower the main sail and were in fact concerned it may fail completely. After about 8 hours and giving ourselves plenty of sea-room around the coast, we finally made it around the corner and then Jamaica - here we come!

This lasted for about a day of heading south with a reasonably strong following wind with some pretty big rolling wave that would occasionally dump over the stern of the boat, usually just as you clothes had dried! It was a very different boat motion indeed to what we had had previously. I had heard a phrase where Lively Lady has been described as lifting up her skirts and running, and this was very true here. At times we touched 7 knots and surfed on plenty of waves.

Then about 50 miles off of the coast of Jamaica we realised that the engine was not charging the boat’s batteries. This may not sound like a major problem for a sailing boat but consider that our GPS Plotter is a key piece of equipment (even though we do have other less high tech alternates), our autopilot (who we christened Alec, well what else could you call that what steers Lively Lady??) is pretty critical in big following seas and to top it all off a questionable sail, things started getting serious. We decided to switch Alec off to save power and manually helming on the tiller for a couple of hours totally exhausted me. Colin then took the helm (as the strength and potentially skill required was just too much for Jack and Michael).  I decided to play amateur electrician prior to taking over the helm an hour or so later. There were a few frantic calls to Alan on the Iridium sat-phone, we tried all sorts of things. I was working over a very hot engine in a very hot cabin, trying to use a failing torch and a chemical light-stick to see what I was doing. The navigation equipment kept losing power which needed immediate attention so we didn’t lose all of instruments completely and things were getting very tense. After an hour or so, with lots of wires trailing, I finally got the spark I had been longing for. I quickly jury-rigged a slightly more permanent solution, stuck my head out of the hatch and said to Collin, “how do you fancy some of this?” as I pressed the big red button to wake Alec up! The grin of sheer relief was great! So back on full power we finally rounded the west cape of Jamaica in the early hours of Tuesday morning and made our way to the Royal Jamaican Yacht Club.

We were met by Carol, Tash, Kayleigh and Patricia (the club manager) and finally docked. I am sure there were a few tears of relief in all our eyes as we came ashore to a well deserved hug or two. What should have been a nice 6 day leg turned into a very tough 8 day ride, but I guess that is the nature of what we are all involved in.

We did have some well deserved R & R, Carol and the boys left to fly home and we were left sorting out the ‘Old Girl’. This involved taking down the mast so we could re-rivet the track which isn’t really what you want to be doing in the Caribbean climate!

My feeling at the end of this leg were summed up as follows:
Firstly Lively Lady. She’s great! That old girl will get you anywhere! Yes, we had problems with some bits of kit but that was mostly the ancillaries. The Raymarine kit is amazing, reliable easy to use and does its job brilliantly. You just have to make sure you have the battery power to keep it running! Some of the other electronics I’m not sure about, but we coped.

Our Skipper, Colin Heath. Initially when I discovered my leg on board was not with Alan but Colin as the Skipper I was a little upset. But after having spent time with Colin, I just want to say he is brilliant. Never once did I doubt his skills, he has taught me a hell of a lot and I owe him a great debt of gratitude!

I spent all my watches with Jack and he is a great lad. He may not be perfect but was excellent company, did what ever was asked of him and much more. He learnt very quickly and was great fun to be with.

Mike was a little younger than Jack and I think he found the whole experience a little more daunting. He was willing to learn and would always do things when asked.

So on to Panama…

So Colin and I left Jamaica with a girly crew after saying goodbye to the boys. We did not get off to the best start, Kayleigh was not too well and Tash suffered from sea-sickness. This left Colin with a lot of watches by himself and both of us sleeping on the floor! This made the sailing leg to Colon interesting to say the least. I had to change from amateur electrician to amateur doctor (or maybe even nurse!) I did one night watch alone which is an amazing experience. A very strange feeling of how small you feel and how you fit into a very big world when all you see is sea, sky and stars!

After only 4.5 days at sea, it was great to arrive at the PCYC. The canal was then amazing. This was the one reason I had wanted to do this leg. The pure scale of the locks with their massive engineering to the peaceful lakes was great. It was even better to see a welcoming committee on the Pacific side in the form of Alan, Liz and of course Chérie.

And finally we were out of the canal and on our way around the headland to the marina. The weather would not quite give in and had one last go at us in the form of a massive thunder storm just as we approached the end and so we arrived soaking wet!

So it was over. I had achieved my goal of sailing Lively Lady through the Panama Canal and with a bit extra on top of that!

The whole trip emphasized to me that Lively Lady herself is real national treasure and should be recognised as such. A line I use to people when talking to them about the boat and the project is “look around the boats in a marina. How many can you see sailing around the world when they are twenty years old? And then how many will do it again when they are nearly sixty?”  That really makes you think!

I have heard Alan say that nobody except those that have sailed in this project will really understand what we all go through. That is so true. It is an experience that is hard to describe, and I hope my memories and those of the other crew members help give an insight. The young adults have all worked together to be part of something remarkable.

But there is more to come before she arrives back home. As I write this in mid April 2008, as well as looking after our fundraising website www.livelyladyfundraising.org.uk, I am looking forward to again joining Lively Lady in Egypt, to pass through the Suez canal and then on to Malta. And to find out what happened on that leg, you will have to ask me in person!

Chérie’s Lively Lady Story

For most of my life, I have been involved in Scouting in one form or another (mostly in Kent), and I have always had a special passion for Water Activities (especially powerboating). Through powerboating within Scouting, Andy and I became involved in a group called “RIBnet”; a group who meet and powerboat socially.

Through RIBnet we became involved in supporting a project called “Spirit of Cardiff”; an attempt to set a new record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world in a RIB (rigid inflatable boat). So in April 2002, a group of us headed (with boats in tow) to Cardiff harbour, to see these four mad men set off in their tiny yellow boat. One of these men was Alan Priddy.

Through supporting Spirit, I invited Alan to come and give a presentation about the project at a Flare Demonstration day that I had organised for a group of “water” scouts in Kent (April 2004). Chatting to Alan, he told us about this crazy idea of his to take an almost 60-year old wooden boat around the world, with an ever-changing crew of young adults. We didn’t really know what to make of it, but we just nodded, smiled and agreed to be part of it!

We invited Alan to give another presentation about Spirit in November 2004, at another Scout event – but this time on board HMS Bristol in Portsmouth. At the end of this presentation, Alan spoke about the Lively Lady project and told everyone that Andrew (my boyfriend) would be one of the co-skippers. So that was it – no backing out now!

Although not particularly keen to do a leg myself, I threw myself into being part of the shore team. This started at the London Boat Show in January 2005, where I very quickly learnt all about Lively Lady’s history and statistics through giving guided tours to many people. I even managed to drag along my friend Nicola, and she also became very good at providing the “spiel”, even though she is not a “boaty” person!

In May 2005, I travelled down to Portsmouth from Kent on my own, and had my first sail (and helming experience) of Lively Lady! This involved sailing her from Gunwharf Quays to Langstone Harbour in Portsmouth, where she was taken off the water to begin her major refit. For me, this was a really exciting experience that I will never forget – sailing on this famous old boat! For Alan, that was probably an experience that he hopes to forget, because he realised that I really didn’t know my “push the tiller” from “pull the tiller”!

One of my most memorable events involving Lively Lady was when Andrew and I joined Alan on board Lively Lady for the International Fleet Review in June 2005. This was the first time I have been sea-sick – and this was whilst the boat was stationary just outside Portsmouth Harbour! But we did get to sail past HMS Endurance – although by the time we went past the Queen had gone inside! Following the Fleet Review we helped to fundraise for the project at the International Festival of the Sea at HMS Nelson. This was another great experience, where my knowledge of Lively Lady was again tested!

The 28th July 2006 (the day Lively Lady left Portsmouth) was the most memorable day of the project so far, and it really moved me to see just how many people were involved and interested in the Raymarine Lively Lady project. Some friends of ours came along and we had a really fantastic weekend. It was really quite amazing seeing just how many people had turned out to see Lively Lady off.

One image that will stay with me is that of a tiny blue boat sailing into a huge lock in Central America. On 14th December 2006, I stood on top of the Miraflores locks visitors centre with Alan and Liz, and watched as Lively Lady, with Andrew, Colin, Tash and Kay sailed into the final set of locks of the Panama Canal. This was quite a spectacular moment for me – to actually see this “crazy” project in action and having a real positive impact on the lives of many young adults. Getting to know Tash and Kay in Panama really showed me just what an amazing project this is, because of how much it teaches the young adults about life, independence, team work and different cultures.

I join in with the fundraising when I can, and between Andrew and me we run the www.livelyladyfundraising.org.uk website. I am also the person who is responsible for updating the Lively Lady website map from the crew positions, alongside running the database of photos on the Flickr website (www.flickr.com/photos/andy_reid/sets).

One thing that has really impressed me about the Raymarine Lively Lady project in general, is just how much the young adults have achieved in terms of fundraising, organising and running events, and giving presentations. It is really an honour to be involved in such a project, and I can’t wait to be there, standing on the quayside, on 5th July 2008, cheering loudly as Lively Lady sails back home.