Thursday 19th February, 2009

David Speed died of a Coronary Artery Thrombosis due to Arthurosclerosis. Lifestyle, according to the pathologist. His arteries were 90% furred up and he had already had a heart attack some time recently which he probably wouldn't have actually noticed. I am told that furred up arteries have to do with smoking and cholesterol. So we all know what we need to do if we are to try and eke out a few extra months. On the other hand do we want to eke out any more time. We know this life is no rehearsal so perhaps we should just get on and enjoy it.

I shall post details of the funeral on this site once I have them.

Duncan


Wednesday 18th February, 2009

David's partner Jules is a Jules as opposed to a Jools, in case anyone would like to know. Not that Jules has ever said that she is concerned but I have been asked by a couple of people who want to make sure they get it right when sending cards and so forth.

Talking of getting it right, I have been getting it wrong. I unfailingly give Sally, a box of Ferrer Roches chocolates on every Birthday, Christmas, Mother's day and Valentine's. She always gets a proper present but the chocs are part of the deal. Or rather they used to be. After 12 years she announced the other day that she didn't like the Ferrer Roches chocs, and never has. And that she always gives them to the kids. I knew the kids always ended up eating them and I was always furious that she should let them overwhelm her so and steal her special chocolates. So, I have been told.

Duncan


Tuesday 17th February, 2009

It is a sad day. The man who was my friend, who took over my life without question when I had my accident, who gave to me and my family unconditional love and support and who set up this website so that friends could monitor my progress, has died. It is believed he had a severe heart attack early this morning. I hope it was sudden and that he did not suffer in pain. It is a terrible shock for all of us but the shock and trauma for Jules must be enormous.

This site was used by David to encourage people to pray when I was going through the dark days and I would ask that you say a prayer to your God or spirit for David and for Jules and for the family to help them at this time. David Speed was one of life's characters. He was the most extraordinary friend to me. I am very sad that he will no longer be with us.

Duncan

I had sailed to Yarmouth, the tides dictating the direction. The wind had been good. I had ‘heaved to’ on port for lunch about a mile from a Customs cutter and Dorothy Lee had remained reasonably stationary, fore reaching at about 0.5 to 1 knot which with the tide now against us meant that we were heading back to Swanwick at about 1 to 1.5 knots. After lunch I released the backed headsail and resumed our course. Nearing Yarmouth I thought better of overnighting there. I would be pinned onto the pontoon and would naturally have to face the diffidence that is the Yarmouth welcome and so I went about and headed back to Swanwick which would now be 3 to 4 hours away. At which point a rib with 6 heavily head-geared men roared past. They weren’t RNLI but they looked very official. Officious they turned out to be for they were from the Customs cutter. They came up to my boat in a very threatening manner. They gestured something to me which I failed to understand. Did they want me to stop ? I was sailing, what would they like ? I could have heaved to, as it was I carried on and their helm simply drove his rib into me, nurfing me on the quarter. It was a shabby rib with the black adhesive lettering for HM Customs, flapping and falling off the sponsoons. I was concerned that it would make nasty black marks down my topsides which would need polishing out. As a boat it was a disgrace but then I suppose they are not seamen just tax collectors. Their helm smirked a lot. A man in the bows attempted to speak to me. It was reasonably windy and the noise of their outboard didn’t help. I had to ask him to repeat each question. He was actually reasonably polite considering he was asking impertinent questions. Perhaps he was polite because he knew he was asking inpertinent questions. Still I don’t suppose you catch criminals unless you ask a few questions. I was tempted to suggest that for the amount of tax I have paid they could at least afford a rather smarter rib but naturally I only thought of that after they had left and as a law abiding citizen I answered their questions honestly. “Where had I come from...where was I going ?” Back there, actually. “Was this my yacht ?” Yes this is my boat. “How long have you owned it ?” Actually if I had been a criminal I would have told them to “Sod Off !” and they would have Sodded Off. Still the man who asked the questions did his best in the circumstances and I have never gone out of my way to be rude, especially as a chap and his workmates was out on this very cold day going about his business. Actually he had an excuse, he was being paid, what was my excuse ? The helsman continued to smirk. It was only when I turned back to the business of sailing my boat that I noticed that he had pushed me well off the wind and well off course. He is the sort of bastard who enjoys his job intimidating people, unlike the man in the bows of the rib who was considerate. If I had any drugs on board I would have injected, sniffed, smoked the lot there and then.

D

I went for the CT scan and met my old friend GE Light. In fact I saw my other mate, a bloke called Siemens – he does the x-rays. I also saw the man in charge of the department and he commented that I had put on a lot of weight. Well of course the last time he saw me I was doing a passable impression of Ghandi. Are we allowed to say that these days when the thought police are taking us to task for every opinion expressed, however valid ? Clarkson should have told them to stuff it. He should never have apologised, after all of the four ‘apparently offensive’ words, “one eyed Scottish idiot”, 75% of them were factually correct and the word ‘idiot’ was Clarkson’s opinion. And Clarkson is not alone, Sarkozy – what a beautiful wife – has also said that Brown is making a right royal cock up of handling the economic crisis and how 2.5% off VAT will make no difference to the economy. Sarkozy is right and it hasn’t. Actually it has, it has cost companies extra money which has made them worse off. Well done Brown – idiot ! Clarkson should have stood his ground and then ITV would have snapped him up for 10 times what the BBC pay him.

GE Light told me to hold my breath. A distant and metallic voice who I know to be the very nice man who operates the CT machine had already warned me that this breath holding would be for quite a long time. The machine counted the seconds away for me, most helpful – only 25 seconds actually, not an especially big deal for a voiceover as we have quite reasonable breath control. Actually my friend the CT man had already had some problem finding a vein in my arm because despite drinking a vat of contrast flavoured with lemon squash I required further some extra directly into my vein. He reminded me what he had told many times in the past, that I would feel warm and possibly might feel the need to go to have a pee. As I was already busting because of the jug of liquid I had been given to drink, I was a little alarmed. But actually I didn’t lose control and I didn’t feel warm either, probably because I am as fit as a fiddle. I was very unwell when I had my previous scans. There is a girl who greets you at CT and gives you your jug. And very nice she is to. Imagine having to explain what your job entails. “I hand out the drinks. I tell them it tastes foul and offer to flavour it with lemon squash. Interestingly they all go for this. I have never come across anyone who takes it neat.”

I would make a hopeless drug addict as it is still impossible to raise a vein. I thought I was bad at providing a decent vein when I was in hospital because I had given so much blood and been stabbed so many times. No, it just seems that this is me, reluctant to give any blood or to accept a needle in any vein. Quite right, I don’t like being fiddled with, I don’t like massages or any of that fuss. Now I wait for the surgeons to send me an appointment to find out if they can go in without problems. In the meantime the herniations increase in size, albeit slowly.

Chemring who make the Pains Wessex flares have posted a 16% increase in profits despite the economic climate. I thought this should not go without mention and wrote to their chief executive. Needless to say he has not had the courtesy to reply. Pathetic coward ! And no I won’t resign from anything over expressing my opinion. Bet you wish you were as brave as me ‘Jezzah ?’ Mind you I am not gambling with a £2 million career. The letter went like this…

“Congratulations on increasing your pre tax profits by 16%. Well done. But while you are cracking out the champagne and basking in the euphoria of success I would ask you to spare a moment for the occasions when your well intentioned product does not 'do what it says on the tin'. I am referring to the chap who was shot by a faulty Pains Wessex Mk 7 white handheld collision warning flare. I am he. And I can assure you that your slogan "Designed to get you noticed" is not wrong. I was noticed all right. You get quite a bit of notice when a flare burns inside you at 3,000° Celsius for the advertised 60 seconds. You spend 9 months in hospital, 4 of them in ITU and 6 weeks in a coma. The surgeons noticed as they threw away my spleen and my large bowel, gave me a stoma and re constructed my shattered right hand - they couldn't find the tip of the middle finger so had to amputate to the distal joint. And they continued to notice me as they gave me 20 laperotomy operations over the 9 months in an attempt to rejoin the various sections of my shortened, small bowel which had been devastated by the heat and chemicals from the flare.

Now I know accidents do happen. Unfortunately this flare was hand packed and someone at Pains Wessex underfilled the canister which made it into a lethal grenade, as opposed to a safety device and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life is like that. And it is probably churlish of me to mention the incident and possibly spoil your fun. I really do apologise for taking the fizz out of your champagne.

By the way if you ever gain comfort from your professional indemnity insurance and feel that you have done your duty to the public, think again because the Zurich Insurance company with whom your were insured at the time of my accident are quite the most aggressive, confrontational and unpleasant bunch of people I have ever come across. The same goes for their lawyers, Weightmans.

Your company had written us a very kind letter of apology about the accident and assured us that you would do everything in your power to help. And I am sure that you did. However as you would not be paying for the rehabilitation and damages, it fell to the Zurich to handle the matter and they blocked us at every turn. We didn't ask for much and were genuine in our needs but the Zurich were absolutely appalling in their behaviour. They even sent in doctors unannounced to the hospital where I was being kept and then later when I was discharged to be nursed at home, a doctor who had come from Manchester made an unscheduled appearance on the doorstep. In the end we settled with them because having been through such a shattering experience we were not in a fit position to fight. To be able to take on a major legal case you need to be strong and compus mentis. I had just survived an un-survivable injury, according to the doctors.

In fact it looks very much as though we should have fought them because I now have herniations which may very well prove impossible to rectify and the prognosis with future surgery does not look good. The operations will be many, the stay in hospital will be lengthy and overall we may not be successful.

Anyway, you had better get back to the party. Congratulations on the commercial success and well done for making a profit in such a tough market.”

In the meantime I am getting on with the Seamanship/Masterclass articles for Sailing Today, the book of “Just a Sharp Scratch”, the talks and after dinner speaking, and the book 'Plain Sailing – what every Cruising sailor really needs to know”.

D