We’re now at the most important moment of the book, and the section that could be claimed to have secured the reputation of ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ as one of the greatest British adventure novels of all time. It’s the row to the island of Memmert in a thick fog on October 22: a fantastic feat of navigation and physical strength by our two heroes, Carruthers and Davies.

But can it actually be done? And what of the dinner afterwards at the Dollmans on the Schwannallee in Norderney? This podcast covers amazing feats of dinghy rowing, bird wardens, the holiday exploits of Chancellor von Bülow, and German (and Norwegian) dinner parties.

First up, we explain again why you should be supporting our efforts to create a brand new Handbook Edition of our favourite book, all yours for just £25 with Field Audiobook and an online adventure thrown in for free. Full details at https://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sands. (01:44 )

Tim notCarruthers consults the maps, the text and Yahoo Answers, then does the maths (in a very rough way) and concludes that the row to Memmert is probably a very tall tale indeed(05:30 ). He goes on to discuss real-life ocean rowers Harbo and Samuelsen (13:20 ), and the larger-than-life John Fairfax (15:33 ).

Lloyd NotDavies evaluates our chances of making it to Memmert at all on a real adventure next year (20:20 ), and talks about the only people to have lived on the islands in the last 100 years - a strange family of bird wardens and rabbit hunters. (21:07 )

We then go in search of the Schwannallee and find only the Bülowallee (27:18 ). Much talk about Schwann the physicist, and Bülow the Chancellor, with speculation about Norderney as a place for ‘all-male gatherings’(30:58 ). We sit down to dinner and consider what kind of meal would be had in 1898 (36:07 ), rediscovering ‘Babette’s Feast’ along the way (37:28 ), and enjoying Germany’s funniest ever TV comedy sketch to boot. (40:24 )

Club Business. Inspired by talk of foghorns in a previous podcast, John tells us about ‘The Hornster’ (45:10 ); Gordon wants to know more about McMullen’s ‘Down Channel’, so we oblige (45:58 ); EC Childers tells us more about Erskine’s personal library of sailing books (48:17 ); Emma on Facebook calls out Victoria BC for poor sewage management (49:23 ); Ian on Twitter points us back towards Latakia, the possible source of our pipe tobacco (51:09 ); instructions on how to pack a pipe come from Sergeant Matron of the Kervaig Pipe Club (52:04 ).

MUSIC CREDITS

Great Open Sea by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society/none_given_1098/12_-_Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society_-_Great_Open_Sea

The Ballad of Harbo and Samuelsen by Jerry Bryant: https://youtu.be/-rdqQxlx9hI

Dinner For One: https://youtu.be/b1v4BYV-YvA

The Hornster: https://youtu.be/_9nonCqesLI