Quote:
Originally Posted by ShinyShoe
Am I right in understanding that you'd never met before and only communicated via the forum up to the decision to "do it"? My over cautious nature means I'd spend more time worrying about what if Jurgen had 4 heads, ate ginger Englishmen for breakfast. Or what if he likes to cruise at WOT and you prefer to be at 2100 revs etc. Did that sort of thing worry you before taking the plunge?
I can think of nothing worse than being trapped on a small boat with someone who you can't stand to be with!
Clearly it worked for you - just curious how much you stressed about this and anything you did to make sure you were compatible.
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You really made me laugh now
but indeed - Alex and I never met before the RB .
The very first contact I had with him due to the Macmillan cancer project . I flew from Kiev to Berlin , put the Barrus tanks for the project into the G wagon , drove to Rotterdam and took the ferry to Hull , went to Blackpool to buy Black Hawk , met on the way back to Hull with M.Witham to ask a couple of questions about the boat and gave him the tanks .
One day the tanks found their way from Preston to Alex .
Then - in 2013 I went to Milford Haven with my Searider to go round Ireland . What a great trip !
Here I met first time with Trev who participated with Ric with their 4.7 which performed extremely well !
Actually I did not intend to go round Britain - simply because of the high cost but when I changed my mind it was Trev who told me that he knows "somebody" who would be interested too = Alex . He knew me a little bit and thought it might be worth to try
Then the only chance we had was to communicate via Skype .
I was in Kiev , Black Hawk in Germany and Alex in the UK ..
At Biff´s place - who as the heart absolutely on the right spot (!!!) - we all met very first time .
We threw all our gear onto the grass and started to select what to take with us - and what not .
I had a bit of experience from the RI but it was great to hear Biff´s advice too !
I was also very pleased to meet at Biff´s place with a few members who I knew only from PM conversations !
Anyway - back to Alex and me - I think we both contributed very well to the success of the circumnavigation !
Sometimes you look at things a bit different as the owner of the boat but we always managed well and I have to admit that I am quite sensitive to details .
I think the biggest issue we had - and this we found out very quickly - we BOTH are snoring very loudly
Even this problem we managed very well - we just tried to keep enough distance between each other in the evening .
Was not really hard cause I slept usually on deck of Black Hawk and Alex elsewhere - or - we just went with our sleeping bags into different directions in the evening .
Cannot remember when I slept so many nights under the open sky but I enjoyed a lot !
Even the Scottish mosquito´s - some here tried to scare me before - could not really bother me !
To summarize after being back in Southampton we separated - after being for almost 2 weeks on a RIB , going through many different or difficult situations - as friends !
I will be definitely back to the UK with Black Hawk and would go again with pleasure for any cruise with Alex - the handy man - as crew
Imogen
we are sitting way to low in the water compared to into the Red (the other 7m vipermax)...
Black Hawk
Ocean Devil
fresh air, long days at sea and beer 
