News: Scottish Man Smashes Bottle in Leith

Yeah I know hardly a newsworthy title until you find out that it wasn't a bottle of Buckfast, which luminary did the smashing, what the bottle was being smashed against.

On Friday I was mischievously saying that Alex Salmond was acting like Shakespearean Scottish Royalty. Now as I've been off in the wilds of Kinross I find that he's been smashing bottles of champagne against the brow of ships.

Yeah I know there is far more to Royal duties than propelling the odd bottle of Moet across a slipway to a new vessel but on this occasion I think Alex would have been a good pick for the role. The vessel in question is a 68ft yacht that is about to set off on the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and it was being named Edinburgh Inspiring City.

The race will consist of 10 teams on yachts named for international cities will be crewed by young people as they sail the 35,000 miles around the world. The other already named yachts are the returning Hull & Humber, Uniquely Singapore and Qingdao with three other new entries already named Cape Breton Island, Cork and California. The remaining three yachts have Welsh, Finnish and Australian skippers. But while the yachts are name after one location their crews are from multiple countries and not as the article I linked to would suggest are all the crew young. Edinburgh Inspiring City has a crew ranging in age from 18 year-old student Frederick O'Hare to 62 year-old management consultant Michael Boyle, representing 5 nations with 27 men and 16 women whose average age is 38.

As someone who has pulled on a number of ropes, set a number of sails, spotted my wind to pick out my course I'm a little envious of those who will be setting out from the Humber in 35 days time in the 13 September, to sail the whole way around the world, or those who will joining on one the legs. But good luck and safe travelling to all of them.

The race consists of seven legs:

• Leg 1: Humber, UK, via La Rochelle, France to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Leg 2: Rio to Cape Town, South Africa
• Leg 3: Cape Town to Fremantle, Austrailia
• Leg 4: Perth to Qingdoa, China, via Singapore
• Leg 5: Qingdao to San Francisco, USA,
• Leg 6: USA to Carribean, via Panama Canal
• Leg 7: Carribean - New York, USA - Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada - Cork, Ireland - The Humber.