King George has made the 4th July a pretty memorable day in America and for some reason the Americans come out in droves to celebrate the big day he left. In Canada the 4th of July, in 2014, is memorable for the coming of a chap called Arthur. Arthur is no ordinary chap, he’s bigger than a state and has more energy than a 4 year old full of Haribo sweets. Arthur is a hurricane and he’s blasting his way towards Shelburne, NS; and where is Ruffian? That’s right, Shelburne, NS.

There were murmurings about the low that was to become Arthur as soon as we made landfall in Canada. The docks were alive with the talk of tropical storms, tropical depressions and the word hurricane was even mentioned once or twice. Even the customs officers who attended us with firearms the size of cannons spoke of little else.

Even though the town was celebrating Canada Day we still download a new weather forecasts every 3 hours, and with each one we become more and more despondent. The whole reason we came so far north so quickly was to avoid the nasty effects of the nasty weather and now the nasty weather was hunting us down. It was due to make landfall in Shelburne, NS and that’s exactly where we were, Shelburne, NS.

The great thing about the weather systems that run up the coast of America is the forecasters are as sure of their path as the British public is of the certainty of our prime minister coming from Eton, there are no repeats of Michael Fish’s 1987 comment ‘There’ll be no hurricane here’. This enabled us to ready for the storm and also find time for ‘fun’.

The fun time entailed the usual romps around the trails and rivers of the area and with a cheeky bit of racing. Iain once again hopped onto a boat and was very impressed when the skipper talked about setting the boat up, practicing corners and calibrating instruments. He was somewhat less impressed when halyards started breaking.

Bob nailed the start, the navigating wasn’t however quite so hot and we quickly gave the rest of the fleet a massive head start as we got really quite lost on the first beat. Not giving up we pushed on and thought things could only get better. Unbeknown to the rest of the crew the skipper had been busy that morning selling his soul to Satan and we sailed in our own breeze between and around the rest of the fleet. By the final top mark we’d magically, or satanically, popped out in front.

With the kite up we just had to run down to the finish and amid whoops of glory we were greeted by silence as we crossed the line. The navigational error had been somewhat more serious than we thought, and deal that the skipper had brokered with Satan wasn’t good enough to blind the race committee. We’d gone from hero to zero in seconds; defeat had been stolen from the jaws of victory.

With all the forecasts starting to agree that ‘Arthur’ was turning into a full on cat 2 hurricane and more importantly heading right for us we readied Ruffian for impending doom. Her top sides were stripped and anything that could turn into a missile was de-armed. We organised shore side accommodation, or squatting as it is commonly known, as the thought of being on board while 6 foot waves washed over Ruffian for hours on end sounded like no fun. On a more macabre note, if it all went wrong, and Ruffian broke free, watching her get smashed up on the rocks would be better from the safe, stationary and secure surrounds of the sailing club, rather than that of her exposed cockpit.

With the calm before the storm now upon us we just hope that the calmness of the night doesn’t indicate the storminess of the storm. The next 24 hours are going to be interesting in all sorts of different ways.

Somebody has stolen the Welsh part of the union flag.


That’s a bit bizarre. Ruffian is tied to a ball.


Brown cold water. Perfect for a swim.


Larry finds his throne in the local quarry.


Fiona puts Larry in his place.


Shelburne takes its loyalist heritage quite seriously.


Boom. Iain’s boat nails the start.


Boom. Iain’s boat nails the finish.


The cooker gets turbocharged.


Full on storm preparation starts. Even the OCC flag comes down.


The Sailing club docks turn into the Marie Celeste.


We think we’ve got enough lines running down to the buoy.


Ruffian all stripped and ready for the coming of Arthur.


With the calm before the storm it’s time to turn to drink.


Arthur’s landfall is in Shelburne and we’re in, errrrr, Shelburne.