



08/05/08
05/05/08
I have discovered that Canasta featured in Yachting Monthly’s 1993 review of the Grand Soleil 42
03/05/08
Come Sailing With Me… Round the Island Anyone?
20/04/08
31/03/08-
Canasta will be entered into the JPMorgan Round the Island Race
31/03/08-
Canasta is scheduled to be launched on Thursday (3rd April)
20/03/08
18/08/03-
18/08/03-
18/08/03-
22/02/08
18/02/08
The sailing press begin to embrace the w2n project and it is at last getting some media exposure.
17/02/08
Another weekend of boat-
14/02/08
www.Sail-
09/02/08
An eventful day on the Solent aboard ‘Bright Flyer’.
31/01/08-
The sale of the house in Bristol completes
31/01/08-
The finishing touches and adjustments are being made
31/01/08-
31/01/08-
07/01/08
01/01/08
Happy New Year! 2008 is going to be an interesting year.....Read more.
21/12/07
I just got back from Phuket in Thailand.....Read more.
06/12/07
Little Planet Productions.....Read more.
03/12/07
W2N Global Ltd launched.....Read more.
23/11/07
Email from the best-














You might think that this is just a simple website. You might expect to find all
the latest exciting W2N news and dramatic pictures presented in a dynamic and engaging
way -
Your contribution is absolutely essential and might just make the difference between
success and failure. So press ‘Ctrl D’ now to add this to your favourite website's
and remember to visit regularly. Also, by registering your contact details, you’ll
be kept up to date with the latest developments and importantly, will occasionally
be invited to submit your all-
Just over a year ago, fuelled by a lifelong passion for sailing, a rather reflective
review of my life revealed a restlessness that has evolved into the W2N project that
I present to you today. I say ‘evolved’ largely because the original (albeit lacking
in originality) plan was simply to sell the house, sell the business, buy a yacht
and set off on an entirely ill-
External influences, not least of which is Luke Rhinehart’s best-
Well, there’s me! I’m Rob Clark; Skipper, Navigator, Crew, Marketing Manager, Finance Director, Public Relations Director, Writer, Photographer, Engineer, Chef and Cleaner!
And that’s it… just me! I conceived the idea for the project over a year ago and
as yet, have not burdened anyone else with any specific responsibilities. Whilst
continuing to run my Audio-
I can’t say with any certainty that it’ll stay that way. Throughout the voyage, you’ll
find regularly updated news and GPS positions but most importantly, you’ll be able
to vote, enter the draw for a free holiday and chat with me and others in the forum.
It may be necessary to appoint a shore-
Put simply, I’m going to sail single-
At each destination, I’ll launch another vote and present to you another six possible onward routes. For me, the challenge will be to honour the vote unquestioningly and keep moving towards the ultimate goal of making one complete lap of the world. I expect to spend a short time ashore at each destination to allow you all enough time to submit your votes. During that time, a week or so, I’ll document a few of the most significant navigational and cultural points of interest and publish them here on this website along with photos and a ‘live’ graphical representation of my current GPS position.
Nobody could predict with any accuracy the likely timescale for this project. After
all, it’s entirely dependent on an unpredictable public vote and as such, it could
take two, three, maybe four years to complete. Only one thing is certain; the ‘Where
to Next?’ project is going to change my life. I’m really not expecting it to be easy
and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive about certain elements of it. Three
or four weeks alone and exposed to the unforgiving swell of the Atlantic cannot be
avoided. Night-
So, it’s your choice, your experiences and advice that will determine the route. Be nice…. Please!
By subscribing to the ‘Where to Next?’ voting system, you’ll be emailed periodically with an invitation to vote. From there, you’ll be directed to the six choices which will each include a short paragraph highlighting the possible navigational implications and challenges associated with that particular choice. A simple click on your preferred destination will register a vote but you will be invited to qualify your choice with a comment. If all goes to plan, you will also be automatically entered into a prize draw to win flights to that location or gifts from the sponsors. This is of course entirely subject to winning appropriate sponsorship but if I am successful, the flights will be scheduled to arrive in time for you to spend a few days on board the ‘Where to Next?’ yacht.
So there it is. In a nutshell, that’s how the voyage will progress. In the spirit of ‘The Dice Man’ I might even adopt the voting system or even the throw of a dice to determine other factors such as my choice of boat, my starting location or in fact, what to do next should I successfully complete the circumnavigation!
I’ve sailed since 1982 when my brother and I started secondary school and joined
Mr. Buckle’s Youth Sail Training classes at Burghfield Sailing Club by the M4 near
Reading. For the next twenty-
I was introduced to yacht sailing in 1986 when I was invited to join my friend Nick Francis and his family on their Westerly Fulmar. The trip took us from the Hamble to Cherbourg, Alderney and Guernsey in the Channel Islands – a route I retraced in 2005 sailing solo on my current boat ‘Bright Flyer’.
Rob Clark 1 Rob Clark 2 Bright Flyer
My brother Colin and I continued to sail dinghies for several years until, in 1992,
we were invited to crew onboard a Gib’Sea 32 in a series of Solent races. I remember
those weekends with mixed emotions as, at an impressionable twenty-
That opinion was to change in 1994 when, while living in Hungerford, I chartered the modest 24’ ‘Ben Nevis’ for an eventful two weeks on the Caledonian Canal. She was only 24’ but for the first time in my life, I was sailing a ‘yacht’, going where I wanted to go, at my own leisurely pace and I wasn’t getting verbal abuse for messing up the spinnaker gybes!
That Caledonian trip ended rather unpredictably when, on the last day before taking the boat back to the yard in Inverness, we met the Swedish crew of the beautiful 52’ Cutter ‘Fanny’ at a pub called the ‘Lock Inn’ . They were travelling back from the West Indies, through the canal and across the North Sea to Gothenburg in Sweden. The evening turned predictably into a rather drunken affair and without giving too much thought to the implications, I invited myself on board for the remainder of their trip! Colin took ‘Ben Nevis’ back the next day while I set off for Sweden.
Those two weeks, the subsequent unscheduled North Sea crossing and another short sailing trip up the West Coast Swedish archipelago were to permanently change my perspective of yachting.
In the summer of 1999, I officially launched my company; Roadshow. Looking back at
what I loosely call my ‘career path’, it seems clear to me now that being self-
Reeds Packaging, Thatcham Cardboard Box Designer
21st Century Marketing, Putney Bridge Selling Sky Television
Invader Publishing, Chichester Selling Children’s Books
Inglewood Health Hydro , Nr Newbury Chef / Waiter
Sean’s Kitchen, Lambourn Chef
Blackpool Pleasure Beach Bartender
PT Inti Daksina Tunggal, Jakarta Import / Export (Heavy Industry and Architectural Lighting)
Surtees MAV, Reading Driver / Engineer (Audio-
Surtees MAV, Bristol Sales Manager (Audio-
For eight years, Roadshow has been pretty consuming. As with any business it’s had its good times and bad but generally, the whole experience has been remarkable. It wasn’t really until I had banked five good years that I started relaxing a little and thinking more about life outside of work. Then, in 2004 following a particularly successful year for Roadshow, I bought ‘Bright Flyer’; a 28’ Trapper 500.
I have had many adventures on ‘Bright Flyer’ including a couple of ‘Round the Island
Races’ and a single-
In June 2007, having already hatched the basic plan for a round-
So, where am I now? Well, I’m still running Roadshow although the company and all
its assets now belong to my good friend Mark Rowlands . My Bristol house is now sold
and I’m living in a small one bedroom flat in Hampshire whilst waiting for the w2n
yacht Canasta to be launched and moved to her mooring in Portchester. I enjoy a very
active (and tea-
Qualifications
19/03/04 RYA Day Skipper
20/08/04 RYA Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster Offshore Theory
14/07/07 RYA First Aid
19/07/07 RYA Yachtmaster Offshore Practical
09/11/07 RYA Yachtmaster Ocean
19/01/08 RYA Sea Survival
Finally, after months of searching, ‘Canasta’ has become the long anticipated w2n yacht and represents a huge boost to the project.
She’s a beautiful Grand Soleil 42 designed by the famous German Frers and built in Italy in 1992.
If you’ve been following the development of the project in the forum, you’ll know
that I’ve chosen Canasta out of hundreds of potential boats ranging from a classic
steel hull ketch to a brand new Benetau Oceanis 40. I was impressed by most of the
boats reviewed and each had specific strengths and weaknesses. I first saw Canasta
in Lymington back in February and described her then as “built from solid granite”.
It was only after subsequent online research and conversations with various people
that I realised just how pertinent that remark was. The Grand Soleil shares many
of her design features with the eminently capable range of Nautor Swan yachts. It’s
no surprise then that German Frers was the common element in both. Evidence of this
can be seen in her beautiful sweeping hull lines gracefully tapering back to an elegant
transom. No ‘sugar scoop’, no soppy diving platforms – the Grand Soleil was designed
to cross oceans quickly, safely and in style. Above, the similarities are evident
too. Teak laid from bow to stern with broad, uncluttered decks. The gentle unbroken
slope of the coaming merging seamlessly with the coachroof and forward to meet the
deck at a purposeful, arrow-
Suddenly, the questionable economic reasoning behind selling the house and the business is clear to see. ‘Canasta’ is everything I had hoped, at what I believe was a reasonable price that leaves a comforting amount of money in the budget for a few essential items, a few personal touches and of course, enough left over for a rainy day!
There are exciting sponsorship opportunities throughout this entire project. I have already mentioned the possibility that, as a voting incentive, I would love to be able to offer flights to meet me on the ‘Where to Next?’ yacht. It would seem appropriate then to target companies that could help to make that happen. A Travel Agent, Flight Operator or Airline perhaps.
I would consider a title sponsor and will be approaching some of the higher profile
companies directly. I would still invite appropriate companies to sponsor specific
areas of the project though and will ensure that each one is given suitable media
exposure. Branding on the boat, my wet-
I’m hoping that the sailing press will follow the project closely and have already had interest from a few of the UK mainstream publications. I will be submitting editorial and photographs to these magazines periodically and will be conscious of my obligation to the sponsors at every opportunity.
I have already started work on a book to document the whole ‘Where to Next?’ experience. Excerpts will be published on the website but I’ve already had interest from at least one publisher. They read the first draft of the opening chapters and recognized immediately the broad public appeal. The book will include details not just of the voyage itself but of the concept development, the struggle to raise funds and the turbulent emotional journey to the start line. Any financial support raised through sponsorship will contribute to the success of the project and as such, could be appropriately credited in the book, the website, the magazine editorial and even on the boat itself.
The international exposure could be considerable.
The W2N challenge is simple – to make one complete lap of the world. That’s straight forward enough. The route, the conditions, the hospitality, the navigational hazards and the potential for adventure will remain a mystery, even to me, until it actually happens. It cannot possibly be predicted with any certainty. Shortly after conceiving the idea, I thought it might be fun to write an account of the campaign and in fact, started documenting every decision of consequence, every pivotal moment and a candid insight into my fears and dreams. Just as the Where to next project has evolved over the past year, so too has what I now rather presumptuously call ‘The Book’!
Here you’ll find a few periodically updated excerpts from the book.
“…My voyage will not be a race. It is unlikely to even come close to the Southern
Ocean or Cape Horn . Far from being ‘non-
“The plan rather arrogantly sticks two fingers up to the commonly held (and not incorrect) belief that the way to guarantee a financially buoyant and fulfilling old age is to keep healthy and invest sensibly. Few would argue that a house, a solid career and generous pension contributions throughout our working lives is the formula for old age security. Well there’s an interesting paradox. Buoyant and fulfilling, to me, could be sailing around the world unburdened by the shackles of a ‘conventional’ life. It’s harnessing opportunities to experience the sights, sounds and smells of distant cultures with naïve energy and a thirst for adventure. Emptying my pockets each night into the old age fund is terribly sensible I’m sure but if I’m honest, I’d question which I fear most; growing old, poor and bitter about squandering my pension with selfish recklessness or growing old, wealthy and bitter about being too dependent on others or burdened by responsibilities to realise a lifetime’s dream. Which would you choose? …“
“…Somehow, in this global age of ‘bought experiences’ and low-
“…Now, I’m a relatively intelligent chap. I know when I’m being manipulated and in my experience, that’s only ever been by girlfriends and mountain bike salesmen. So, it wasn’t entirely within the rules when Nick surreptitiously placed in front of me, open on a page emblazoned with an achingly beautiful glossy photograph, the Oceanis 40 brochure.
“Well that’s no more expensive than the Hanse” he said with the look of a fisherman as his line twitches and the float bobs below the surface.
It would seem, and I’ve turned the numbers over and over all afternoon, that from
two very different financial perspectives, his suggestion was not without foundation
As a commercial venture, W2N Global Ltd could claim back the VAT bringing the net
cost of the Oceanis, fitted out liberally to my demanding personal specification,
down to £114,000. Okay, that’s more than I had budgeted originally but would she
be a suitable boat to take me around the world? Conceivably. Would she make me happy?
Well, with her teak decks, dark blue hull, modern Italian interior styling and a
perfect single-
“Would you be able to take delivery in France ?” Nick asked.
The reason for the question wasn’t, as I first thought, an assumption that the deal was done. It was in relation to a rather tempting little incentive Mr Sarkozy’s government has created to encourage investment in one of France’s most profitable industries; yacht manufacture. This is where it gets complicated…”
“…I’m not one to tread carefully around ladders or avoid stepping on the cracks in
the pavement. I’ll very happily climb aboard leading with my left foot to set sail
on a Friday and may not even have placed a lucky coin under the mast. On board I
will welcome women and plants and will whistle cheerfully, talk about pigs and if,
by chance, there’s wine aboard, there’s less chance of it getting poured over the
deck than there is of it being drunk by me… and I’m tea-
Rob Melotti from PBO magazine insightfully wrote “Chance alone will dictate success or failure”.
Of the current contenders, a Grand Soleil 42, a Bavaria 44, a Beneteau Oceanis 411
‘Celebration’ and of course the unfathomably gorgeous, budget-
”…Perhaps my irrational behaviour was fuelled by the pressures of waiting but it
was during those days that I turned my attentions rather clumsily to promoting the
project. I was haunted by the total lack of participation in the w2n online forum
and the failure of all but a select few to sign up for the Newsletter. There had
even been some media interest from Yachting Monthly and a short news article published
in the April edition but still only a couple of people registered an interest. An
editorial published in Asia ’s sail-
Ok, so maybe my first mistake was choosing Sailing Anarchy as the medium for my deceit but it is a popular website. It’s not known for holding back on the expression of polarised opinion – and in that respect, it didn’t disappoint. Not in quantity but in the literary quality of the first response.
“What's with all those idjits trying to figure out yet another silly way to get sponsored? You know what, in about 5 years time I want to do a circumnavigation by reading the intestines of the fish I will catch underway. I'll set up a bank account now and you can start sponsoring pronto ... that ok?”
Albatross
Hmmm, it took a while to see the funny side being as how I was the target of this mirth but with hindsight, it did make me chuckle… eventually! He’d quoted the ‘sponsorship’ page in the w2n website in which I suggested that the project might offer some mutually beneficial sponsorship opportunities.
Then this from another subscriber…
“Gee could this be a Jr. 1000 day cruise?”
Ezzspike
This appeared to be a disparaging comparison with the story of Reid Stowe and his
girlfriend Soanya Ahmad who, amidst a flood of criticism and ridicule from the Sailing
Anarchy community, set sail in April 2007 on what was generally predicted to be a
doomed one thousand day non-
The dignified response would have been to retort with an educated and impassioned
diatribe highlighting the financial and personal risks, the intriguing social and
psychological experimentation and the Public Relations subtleties of engaging non-
Of course, what I actually did was nothing. With remarkable restraint, I chose to
say nothing and allow the thread to get swamped by some really serious sailing issues
like “Pressure Cookers, What works good and what do you cook with them?” or “Porta
pottie, Oder [sic]”. So, ask the assembled sailing community to comment on a rooky
single-