Team Angry Pirates - Mongol Rally 2008

25th May 2008

With around 6 weeks to go until the launch we've just completed our first test run down to Newquay to meet some of the other ralliers doing the central route. After a very late night last minute session on the car on Thursday night it now looks pretty different! Big thanks to Vodden and Kryten for sorting that out. There is a section coming up with pics of how the car went through it's transformation. Needless to say it was a definite head turner all weekend!

Also on the cards was a charity paintball event which went very well with a good turnout, so thanks very much to everyone that came along to that, we managed to raise about £230 on the day and then Cadbury have cashmatched £200 of that, taking us to £430 from what was a pretty fun day. Who says raising money for charity is hard?! Obviously a massive thanks to the guys at the UCZ paintball site in Newton Abbott for dropping the entry price to make that possible. If you haven't been down there before it is definitely worth checking out, plenty of varied arenas and they don't stich you up with paint costs like some other sites!

Also our most recent sponsor on board is Batmanuk.com who have very kindly donated a fresh battery to the piratemobile which is bound to help no end with running those ridiculously thirsty spotlights on the roof. Check out www.batmanuk.com online for some of the lowest battery prices around.

15th January 2008

15/01/2007 - Mid January already and we've just attended the first Rally meeting in London. Obviously we chose to drive there to get some miles in and a bit of navigation practice, where better than the manic streets of central London. Personally I think driving to Mongolia has got to be easier than navigating the crazy maze of one way streets, crossroads and incredibly frustrating "no left/right turn" junctions.

Once we'd made several illegal u-turns and gone up plenty of bus lanes we finally arrived at Brick Lane, East London, fashionably late of course. The room was rammed with ralliers which suddenly opened my eyes to the actual scale of the event, should be a good one... After a few talks from the charities, Hope and Homes and MercyCorps Mongolia, there was a question and answer question with the organisers and some ralliers that had done it last year. The representative from MercyCorps had travelled all the way from Scotland to attend which is a pretty good effort. The majority of questions revolved around visa, border and health issues of the rally as well as a ton of questions on what went wrong with the cars, a lot by the sound of it. Apparently this isn't a problem though as contrary to what your mechanic tells you, suspension can be fixed with an Italian Suede shoe. Chris rightly pointed out "Why would you take an Italian Suede shoe on a rally to Mongolia?"... The majority of our useful information taken from the meet was from a couple guys who had done it in 2007 and had bags of enthusiasm and helpful hints that will no doubt help along the way, one of which was to "Just repeat everything the police say to you and they will eventually get bored and stop asking for bribes." I'll let Chris try that one first.

6th January 2008

06/04/2008 - Around 12 weeks to go until launch day and preparations are, well, a little slow but the Visa's have now been ordered so we're getting somewhere. Also in the pipeline is some pretty extravagant roof rack engineering by Chris and the fitting of some enormous rally style headlamps. Had a little bit of a scare recently with the car nearly been taken away to the scrap due to a little bit of mis-communication! Also confirmed is the first test run of the pirate-mobile, other ralliers from the south west are all heading down to Newquay for a pre-rally meet on the Mayday bank holiday weekend. With a little luck our car should look a little bit special by then also... more to come on that soon. Thanks for reading and there should be another update soon.

10th November 2007

The team has been found and the entry fee has been paid. The Angry Pirates are off to Mongolia! It all started with a thirst to do something that little bit different, after watching too much Bear Grylls (even if he is a big faker) and Jack Osbourne myself and Mr Vanstone have decided were off to Mongolia in a tiny, uncomfortable, unreliable and most likely rusty vehicle.

 So whats it for then? Well it's all in aid of Charity at the end of the day. That's why were doing it in the smallest cheapest most economical vehicles possible. The charities involved are Mercy Corps Mongolia, who help support disadvantaged rural communities; and Hope and Homes who do an incredibly worthwhile job helping remove abandoned children from the terrible conditions inside the State orphanages and relocating them with families.

 The trip looks like it's going to take around 30 days and we need to cover around 9000 miles. Incase anyone has heard of the Gumball Rally, this is nothing like that! After the last meeting, which I beleive is scheduled for Prague we will be completely on our own until Ulan Baatar, Mongolia. The disclaimer quite clearly states the organisers have no responsibility, there is no route, there are no checkpoints, support vehicles or doctors or security experts (Take note Mr Mcgregor and Mr Boorman!). Also once we arrive in Mongolias capital we auction off the car to the locals and donate the money to charity.

 After some inital planning yesterday Chris and I have done some quick sums and come up with a number that appears to cover most essential aspects of the trip. It looks like as a sum we will need to find around £3100 to cover the charity money that must be raised and give us a little help with the purchase and running of the vehicle, just to be clear this doesn't take into account our flights home, food, accomodation or drinking (all of which we will of course be saving ourself by working very hard behind a desk and cnc machine!). So quite a target! Equating to raising around £400 per month! We are hoping to raise a lot of this through company sponsorship so if you'd like your companys logo displayed proudly on our little vehicle and being part of the rally please let us know! Shortly the organisers will be providing us with a website allowing online donations and the like so I'll be posting more information in the very near future.

Thanks for reading and please keep checking back for updates on Team Angry Pirates Mongolian Adventure!