Moby the boat - level 3
Thankfully, this isn't another beached whale on the British coastline. This is a rather unusual boat shaped like a whale and named Moby, of all things, after its namesake novel by Herman Melville.
Former SAS soldier Tom McClean has spent a mammoth 100,000 pounds and 2 decades building the 65-foot boat (20 meters) in preparation for a 3,500 mile (5,600 kilometers) voyage across the Atlantic. The big question is why?
“Maybe 'why not' I would say. I'm the first man to have rowed the North Atlantic alone and I've sailed it and I’ve crossed it in a bottle-boat. You can go in many shapes. I thought, well 'why not a whale?' I want to clean up the planet and get the environmental companies to be involved with me and... well, here we are, Moby!”
The boat with the big environmental message will sail down from Loch Nevis in Scotland to London and then New York in stages next year. And it’s guaranteed to be a whale of a time for the retired serviceman.
“I’m 73 and I feel good. You could say I'm mad, but I'm happy with that. I'm getting on doing things, I’m getting off my backside and doing things rather than sitting and watching the telly.”
The Loch Ness may have its monster, but we reckon Loch Nevis’s whale is giving it some stiff competition.
Difficult words: namesake (a thing that has the same name as another), former (-ex), SAS (Special Air Service), mammoth (very big), voyage (a long journey), a whale of a time (a great time), reckon (to think), stiff (serious), the Loch Ness may have its monster (some people say a sea monster lives in Loch Ness).