Topsail Adventures Ltd

Amelie Rose and The Hungry Sailors - The Whole Story...

Here it is! 60 days of filming with The Hungry Sailors compressed into 21 action filled chapters. We've been on fire and nearly ship-wrecked, we broke a bowsprit, we've visited 29 ports and through it all we sailed and munched our way ever Eastward. We think that the most interesting stories are those of the folks we met though - many who have left "normal" jobs to pursue their dreams - just like us. Those stories still need telling and we're hoping to have news about that soon, but until then, read on!

We hope you enjoy reading this blog, and watching the series as much as we enjoyed filming and writing about it, and don't forget - you too can sample the Amelie Rose experience!

Lots of love, Skipper Nick & the Marvelous Miss M xxx

Episode 0: A Prologue to Episode 20:

Click Read more... to read the rest of the blogs >>>

Amelie Rose's Dorset Apple Cake

We love Dorset and never want to live anywhere else. Part of the reason is that any county that chooses this stunning cake as it's county dish has got to be a winner.

Dorset also has the cheeriest County Flag of any we know - but that's a different tale so let's get back to the cake.

Actually cake is a bit of a misnomer, this is more a pudding that you can hold. We mostly make it in the Autumn when there's always tons of windfall apples lying around in our village. It should end up moist and just a tad crumbly with an almost scone texture but as long as it's nice and appley who cares!

From City Streets to the Open Seas

At the beginning of last year we had this piece written about us for an Australian Classic Sailing magazine who were kind enough to let us include it in our own features section.

"On Thursday 23rd April 2009 Nick Beck and Melisa Collett, IT specialists working in banking jobs in the City of London left their respective workplaces and departed the capital to start a new life in the South coast county of Dorset in the UK. Less than 24 hours later, having driven 300 miles to Gweek in Cornwall, they watched the manifestation of their dream, a 44 foot gaff cutter called Amelie Rose, take to the water for the very first time.

We were fascinated to discover what inspires a couple to undertake a project like this and to hear a little about the burgeoning Pilot Cutter scene in the UK, so we spoke to Nick and Melisa at their base in Poole Harbour to find out more..."

Amelie Rose and the Hungry Sailors to hit our screens in January

News has just arrived from ITV that The Hungry Sailors is scheduled to kick off on Monday 16th January 2012 at 1600 on ITV1.

The programme will go out every weekday for four weeks (that's 60 days of filming gone in just 20 hours!).

You can see a preview of the show here on the ITV Studios website. It looks like the fun we had filming the series comes across well so it should be an amusing watch and there'll be plenty of our favourite girl in every episode.

Want to read more about the series? Check out our Hungry Sailors News Story ...

Amelie Rose and the Hungry Sailors

If you've been following our exploits on the website, facebook and twitter feeds you'll know that we've spent a large amount of the year filming for a new ITV1 series called The Hungry Sailors.

The series follows TV Personality and Celebrity Masterchef finalist Dick Strawbridge, his son James, Skipper Nick and First Mate Steve on a cruise along the South Coast aboard our very own Amelie Rose. Starting in Fowey and finishing in the heart of London the crew have visited almost every port in between.

At each stop Dick and James have been heading ashore to work with interesting food producers, design ingenious contraptions and find great food to cook aboard for the folks that they've met.