Bathtub racing with a Strangler

Pom-pom cheerleaders for the bathtub race challenge, led by JJ Burnel,
far right. I'm peaking between the two cheerleaders on the left.

Build a boat from old bathtubs, make it look like a Viking longship and then race it in the sea. As madcap enterprises go, on a scale of one to ten, it was right up there at 12.6.

Those who have read Eating Clouds will already be familiar with this chronicled adventure. But as this weekend marks 31 years since the Ravenlunatic sailed to sea - and with a bunch of dusty photographs from the whole shebang resurfacing during the past year - it seemed timely to look back on this detour from life's serious stuff.

It all started when Jean-Jacques Burnel, bass guitarist with punk/new wave band The Stranglers, watched the annual international bathtub race at Cagnes-Sur-Mer, near Nice, in the south of France in 1985. He wanted to assemble a team for the following year, and early in 1986 put an invitation out through the Stranglers Information Service seeking fans willing to come together to build a bathtub boat.

After the first meeting: Why own a London taxi if you're not
going to test how many people can sit on the roof at the same time?

For me and best pal Rob, being "up for a lark" was a quientessential part of life at 19. So we trundled 100 miles for the first meeting of The Challenge group in a semi-detached house in North London. A mixed group of about 20 gathered. JJ came too. We drew up a plan of action, indicating which components we could source for the bathtub boat and bring along to the next

Jean-Jacques Burnel, left, helps with the construction of the boat
during the first working weekend at Achmed's house in Barnet.

gathering, when work would begin. Before departing we tested the structural integrity of the roof of a London black cab by sitting on it for a team picture.

I secured a dozen large plastic containers that could be used as buoyancy for the boat. These were fitted in place at the first working weekend, where the bathtub boat started to take shape. The design was a Viking longship, after an instrumental track by The Stranglers on their 1979 album The Raven. The main sail and team t-shirts would feature the Raven logo from the album. The boat would be known as the Ravenlunatic.

The boat was soon in transit, or rather strapped to the top of a transit van. We took it to a nearby public pond in Barnet, North London to test its seaworthiness. Who knows what the locals thought of this motley bunch paddling the lake in three bathtubs, however one of them not only thought "call the police" - they actually did.

Call the cops: The test run on a lake in North London.
JJ leads the way. I'm the third one along, officer.

Two police officers arrived, having been told that some kids were messing about on the lake. The officers were surprised to find the "kids" were clearly not wet behind the ears (well, not yet as we hadn't capsized). JJ was a virtual elder statesman kid at 34. The lead officer gave an obligatory spiel about the importance of observing the rules of water safety, then beat a retreat. Meanwhile, we were delighted the boat floated, albeit in a slightly Loch Ness Monster, bouncy fashion. A bit of lateral strengthening was needed.

The boat building and testing then moved to rural Cambridgeshire. A quarry lake near JJ's home became the venue for further "sea trials". The bathtubs were painted black, a dragon masthead was added along with a central mast and black sail with the depiction of a red raven.

Ravenlunatic: a photo from the Record Mirror music magazine of the
boat being tested on the quarry lake. I'm beneath the sail.
The other visible crew members are JJ, Achmed, Grant and Nik.

With the boat now starting to resemble a Viking longship, a call was made to a freelance music press photographer encouraging him to hasten to the lake near St Ives for a few snaps.
A group of us, including The Stranglers' keyboardist Dave Greenfield, hopped into Nik's black cab - the one with the now slightly dented roof - and assembled at the lake to take the boat out for a few laps before the photographer arrived.

The afternoon was ticking away - where was the photographer? There was a call. He had reached St Ives, but it was St Ives in Cornwall, some 300 miles away.
Fortunately, a second photographer was despatched and reached the lake before the sun went down to capture the Ravenlunatic in all her glory. The snaps appeared in the Record Mirror and Melody Maker music papers.

Everything was ready. At the beginning of July a 52-seater coach took the team and the boat almost 800 miles to the South of France. The bathtubs were stowed in the luggage compartments. A further 20 supporters joined the trip, helping reduce the cost-per-head of the epic journey. With everyone decked out in black Challenge t-shirts, featuring the raven, we turned heads on the promenade at Nice. Viking headgear, fake red beards and our posse of pom-pom cheerleaders completed the scene. We were ready to rumble.

Stormy weather: lending a hand as the Ravenlunatic is reassembled.
The crouching man who looks like a coach driver - was our coach driver.

The Ravenlunatic was reassembled on a stony beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer, a few miles from Nice. A race team was picked from the original core group. The rest of us helped and added vocal support from the beach and quay.

Come and have a go: Ravenlunatic mingles among the competition
at the bathtub race championships in Cagnes-Sur-Mer. But all boats
that braved the race course were swiftly sunk by a freaky storm squall.

Something freaky happened to the weather. A storm squall suddenly blew in from nowhere, which meant the race itself did not really take place. The boats played around in the safety of the walled harbour, until a few tried their luck against sea god Neptune, including Ravenlunatic. None survived intact.

But really the escapade was less about the actual race and more about putting together a team, and over the course of four months building a faux Viking longship from a few bathtubs, having fun and forging friendships along the way. The next day the coach was driven into the wooded hills surrounding Nice where there was a freshwater lake that JJ knew about. There we spent an afternoon swimming and floating around in salvaged pieces of the Ravenlunatic. Among those at the picnic was graphic artist Jean-Luke Epstein, who designed the majority of The Stranglers' record covers during the 1980s. Mr Epstein, who died earlier this year, had lent assistance with the construction of the boat.

Madcap adventure complete: a final team group picture, with additional supporters, in front of our coach.
 Look closely and you will see one of the remaining pieces of Ravenlunatic - the dragon masthead

Before leaving the idyllic location we posed in front of our trusty Wallace Arnold coach for a mass picture of crew, boat-building team and supporters. And then it was over.
There are key moments in life that never fade. For me, the spring and summer of 1986 is one. It was about having a spirit of adventure, going into the unknown, doing something a little crazy and different, and having fun. It was a madcap enterprise worthy of celebration.

Footnote: By coincidence, The Stranglers next record was called Nice in Nice and was sung by JJ. It was released a few months after the bathtub race, although the song has nothing to do with that particular adventure. In the video, the band wore prison clothes, referencing their arrest and incarceration after a riot broke out during their 1980 concert at Nice University.