London2Brighton

The Challenge Story

Well, if you didn't already know, we completed our challenge. After a few requests here is the brief story of our adventure.

We finished in 18hrs 04mins. Actual times of where we were and when can be found here

Things started badly on Friday morning when we discovered that the Environment Agency were planning to close the Thames Barrier due to spring tides and northerly winds... OH NO!!!  We very quickly had to find another sailing club to launch from... Gravesend sailing club were the first to answer a phone and amazingly leapt into action preparing to meet us just 2 hours later!

Peter and Penny from Gravesend Sailing Club were there to meet us when we arrived. The generosity and helpfulness of everyone we met there was quite amazing. The club itself is located on the River Thames just East of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge - the M25. Simon and I questioned for a couple of seconds whether this technically counted as London...




After a very short night's rest, we woke at 0400 and ate the breakfast that the hotel laid on for us specially. At 0500 we were back at the sailing club. The sailing club had no slipway, but a small crane with which they launch all of their dinghies - the RIB arrived and it was established that it was probably significantly heavier than Safe Working Load of the crane! We decided to press on anyway, and the team set about launching the RIB while we rigged the boat.


After the RIB followed our boat - It was pretty scary seeing the boat dangling from a wire 10ft above the water! The rain was coming down at this stage and all we can do is thank our support crew with the bottom of our hearts!


0630 - holding onto the RIB, we chugged away from the wharf to the cheers of the support crew - we were on our way...
Coming out of the estuary we had some excellent speed, averaging around 12kts and hitting 16kts towards Margate. We passed the 'bomb laden wreck' that everyone warned us about and the windfarm off Whitstable.


0930 - We arrived at Margate and the waves hit, quite large waves. Our progress was slowed as wind was directly behind us, but surfing down the front of the waves was not just good fun, but also good for the speedo! However, it was extremely hard work and we had to be constantly vigilant!


1100 - We continued in much the same way until we reached the White Cliffs of Dover. We still had big waves, but the wind died making things very uncomfortable. In a classic moment we ended up turning the boat over in a rare gust of wind, which hit us at the same time as we were avoiding a ferry and surfing a wave!!


The Doldrums - despite the sea calming to a very comfortable swell, Dover to Beachy Head was very slow indeed. Apart from occasional blasts of wind, the weather really turned against us and the wind died. We kept ourselves sane, and prevented hypothermia by jumping up and down and singing songs (mainly a song for an advert relating to Hastings), games of eye spy and walking the hull on tip toes!!.


At around 1730 the safety crew went into Rye Harbour to get some soup supplied by the shore team, and to refuel the RIB. Little did we know that this would be the last time we saw them until landing in Brighton! At around 1920 we received a phone call on our only means of communication left to us (a mobile, all the other equipment had failed due to cold, water or battery failure). The safety boat had grounded on the tides and would not be getting out until 22:30 at the earliest. No soup to stave off the hypothermia!!!

Possible Failure - At this point we resigned ourselves to failure, we even turned the boat towards Hastings, with little wind we thought it was all over. We drifted vaguely towards Hastings and discussed the challenge and the prospect of giving up. We thought about it; the safety boat was stuck, it was dark, there was very little wind and the tide was against us. However, the sea was calm, we were happy enough and could call the coast guard if anything untoward happened... We decided to press on!

Hastings to Beachy Head - The wind was light, but we started to pick up speed until we were managing about 4 or 5 kts against a spring tide. The lighthouse at Beachy Head seemed to be in the distance for an age - roughly 3.5 hours as it turned out.

Beachy Head - this was possibly the most scary part of the journey, it was dark, there was one hell of a tide, mixing up the sea and making our progress slow. The wind was picking up though, and with the Spinnaker up, wind beat tide and we eventually rounded the corner to see the lights of Brighton in the distance.

The Final Run - With the wind coming from the side, we accelerated through the pitch black to 15 knots - on a calm sea, this was seriously exhilarating sailing. The lights of Brighton were willing us towards them, and you may have even heard us whooping as we sped towards the Pier.


We passed the Pier at 0035 - We both jumped up and down as we crossed the finish line and sailed into horns blaring and shouts from the awaiting team. Both of us fell off the boat in exhaustion and happiness, upon which we were greeted by our respective wives, families and a well earned bottle of beer!!

The guys at Brighton Sailing Club derigged the boat for us while we showered and drank our beers in the club house.

Thanks - must be said to all the people who have supported our challenge and for all the donations which currently stand at around £9140:

Special thanks though to Nick Conder & Matt Harding who had just about as hard a journey as us in the safety boat and did not arrive in Brighton until 0100.

To our parents, but especially Rupert & Teena Conder for driving non stop from 0700 to 0300, doing errands and pick ups.

To Gravesend Sailing Club for helping us out at the last minute

To Brighton Sailing Club for their ongoing support and help at the end.

And of course our wives, Anna Illston and Lorna Conder for enduring our hours of training, fundraising, all the organisation of the transport, hotels and food and the long wait at Brighton for their crazy husbands in their little boat...

Finally to all of our Sponsors, without whom, this challenge would not have been possible.

One thing about this whole challenge that has really made it worthwhile is the amazing generosity of the people that we have met throughout this challenge - we are truly grateful to everyone who has helped out, given money, their time or just their interest and words of support.

We still need to raise £860 to reach our target though, so any help would be much appreciated.

Matt & Simon

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