Last weekend saw me following in Helene’s footsteps and embarking on my first international yachting reporting assignment.

I visited the 700 Yacht Club in Seoul, networked with some important and influential people, dined on the best fish and chips I’ve tasted since arriving in Korea and was given a free sailing lesson. I even took Kat along with me in her capacity as official “photographist”!

We arrived at the club without realising! Whilst trying to decipher the very small map I had we came across a manky looking barge near where we thought the club was and decided to go inside and ask for directions. As we walked in Harold Shim greeted us shaking my hand and offering to show me around. The inside was far more elaborately decorated than the outside: as the saying goes “You can’t judge a book (yacht club) by its cover (barge!).”

Harold Sim showed around and introduced us to a club member called JP. JP worked on something to do with Welsh relations within the Korean government. I can’t remember his exact job title but he obviously earned plenty of money and dropped into the conversation that he had been lunching with the Welsh ambassador.. oh and that he had played gold with Cathrine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. He was also one of the better looking Koreans I have seen and before the end of the day had given Kat his phone number!

I interviewed Harold Shim about the club and his passion for sailing for about fifty minutes during which time he recounted stories of sailing experiences in America, New Zealand and Korea. He had a great passion for the sport and after living in America for 25 years had decided to continue sailing when he returned to Korea after being lucky enough to watch the competitors practice for the Louis Vuitton cup in New Zealand. When he came back to Korea an encounter with a sail boat that was moored way out in the harbour and getting to it perched on a very small piece of polystyrene with another man and a carrier bag prompted him to decided that there had to be easier ways to sail in Korea. A few years later he set up the 700 Yacht Club.

Once the interview was over we were given a sample of the fish and chips served in the restaurant that was opening the following day. The meal was accompanied by tarter sauce made to a recipe devised by Harold. Being a man of many talents, he’s a lawyer by day, half way through the meal Harold proclaimed that the fish batter wasn’t cooked to a high enough standard explained exactly what was wrong with it, then disappeared for 20 minutes to give the chef a lesson on how to cook! Despite Harold’s misgivings I though the fish and chips was delicious, certainly the best I’ve had since leaving England.

After dinner Harold took us out and gave us a sailing lesson on his favourite boat a Magnum 21 Trimaran. The fastest boat the club has. It was a pretty amazing experience to be in control of the boat even if I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing. Turing the rudder the opposite way to the way I wanted the boat to move took a bit of getting used to. But once I got the hang of it we managed to pick up a bit of speed. It was also strange sailing in the middle of the river with the city reaching high into the sky on both sides. There was something calming about being out in the middle of the river and seeing the bustle of the city all around but being too far away for any of it to bother you. I could see why Harold loved spending his weekends out in the middle of the Han river.

After the sailing lesson we thanked Harold for his hospitality and left. It was then I realised my MP3 player had accidentally deleted the whole 50 minute interview! So instead of relaxing on the bus on the way back to Kumdan we spent the journey desperately trying to remember as much of what he’d said as possible! Luckily between the two of us we remembered most of the important details and I managed to concoct a pretty good article with only one email to Harold to confirm a few details.

I’ll leave you with some photos of our sailing experience.

* Posted by j150vsc on 10/04/2007.