Newport, Rhode Island

So we are sitting in the van at the moment with 3 boats of the trailer behind us. We are heading from Newport back to New Jersey and are in a traffic jam. Currently the onboard navigation unit tells us that our next move is to bear left in 110 miles (that’s how boring these road trips are). Apparently there has been an accident hence the stop/start traffic. Only 5 hours to go if there was no traffic! Did I mention that it is 7.30pm now?














We have had a great 4 days in Newport –the home of the America’s Cup. They even have a road and a pub named after it! The town is sailing mad –everyone has a crew shirt or cap on (quite cool really). We were here for a 3 day coaching clinic –kids from all over the New England area were here as well as coaches from the nearby colleges (Yale, Brown, MIT etc). We have had some interesting weather –massive temperature and wind changes, but happy to report that we are back in boardies and jandals today with some sunburn. Mat has just proved his new tan by taking his watch off –what a glow under there!!


We managed to find some time to take in the sights including a walk along a cliff top past all the world famous mansions. Some are still lived in today but most are now historic visitor sights. They are totally huge and normally only something you would see in a movie –make a cool wedding venue Kate and Zoe J Most of the sailing was done inside the harbour but we managed to find our way to a pretty cool surf beach on the southern coast. We were also lucky enough to go to a movie preview about the history of the America’s Cup that was produced by a world famous sailor and commentator –Gary Jobson. We were amongst the rich and the famous –past AC skippers and yacht designers. It was only at the end that we learned that everyone else had paid $75 to be there (all the kids and coaches from the clinic got to go free) but we felt quite cool in our boardies and jandals!


We will hopefully get back to our house in Bay Head (NJ) tonight in time to re-group tomorrow and then head on the mother of all road trips to New Orleans on Tuesday (it takes 20 hours without taking stops!).

M+S

Architectural highlight (and total museum/gallery visits):
The mansions! Some BIG houses built in a beautiful spot by some of USA’s rich and famous.
Total museum and gallery visits = 2 (still)

Shopping highlight (and total clothes purchases):
Sam’s canary yellow Newport cap and buy one get one free shorts!
Total clothes purchases = 4-1 for the loss of a fag neck jumper (sorry Itchy!) =3

Lessons learnt:
The US has some good sailing coaches (but their coaching style is quite different), and the coffee here is crap!

Fear Factor:
1/10 Peanut Butter and Cheese!
So far we have come across the following food items available in a peanut butter flavour: biscuits (cookies), cereal, fudge, ice cream, and muesli bars. You could probably also get any of these in a cheese flavour!

Funniest moment:
Using some local lingo mainly from our friend Molly! If you are winning a race you “own” it, and if you get hit on the head by the boom, you got “wailed” (thanks VC). A close second was watching the main sail fall down on a boat just after the start of the transatlantic race - I think you'd be asking to get off the boat.

Total number of Thai meals so far:
Still zero! (although we drove past a Thai restaurant each day of the way to the yacht club). If we did have Thai, it would probably have included cheese and peanut butter.