As the most ambitious tour to be undertaken by the MX-5 Owners Club, the Around Britain Drive will allow the MX-5 drivers 14 days to discover the beauty of the British coastline, with the opportunity to visit some of the RNLI's 223 lifeboat stations and volunteer lifeboat crews en route. Beginning in the seafaring town of Whitby, the tour will follow the coast in a clockwise direction covering some 3,600 miles in total. 

MX-5 event organiser, Steve Watkins said, "We decided to support the RNLI during this event, as we are likely to pass many of the 223 lifeboat stations on our travels. The men and women who man the lifeboats, do it for no reward and the funds we raise from this event will help them to continue to save lives at sea." 

The RNLI's fundraising manager, Anne Maton said, "We are delighted that the MX-5 Owners Club has chosen to support the RNLI with this exciting venture. We hope that those taking part, by visiting some of the lifeboat stations, will learn about the type of conditions faced every day by the volunteer lifeboat crews." 

The RNLI is a registered charity, which exists to save lives at sea and is dependent entirely on voluntary donations for its income and on volunteers to man its lifeboats. Since its foundation, the RNLI's lifeboats have saved over 134,000 lives, with lifeboats launching 16 times a day on average, saving at least four lives every day of the year. 

The organisers have set realistic and safe targets during the tour with the following itinerary: 

Saturday 10 June: Depart Whitby, to Cromer 

Sunday 11 June: Cromer to Deal 

Monday 12 June: Deal to Lulworth Cove 

Tuesday 13 June: Lulworth Cove to Land's End 

Wednesday 14 June: Lands End to Clevedon 

Thursday 15 June: Clevedon to Cardigan 

Friday 16 June: Cardigan to Blackpool 

Saturday 17 June: Blackpool to Dumfries 

Sunday 18 June: Dumfries to Largs 

Monday 19 June: Largs to Ardelve 

Tuesday 20 June: Ardelve to Durness 

Wednesday 21 June: Durness to Banff 

Thursday 22 June: Banff to North Berwick 

Friday 23 June: North Berwick to Whitby 

The following are extracts from a recent interview with the event organisers: 

This simple observation was posted on the Internet. 

"A convoy of old Mini's has been seen en route from Lands End to John o Groats." 

Someone responded "Great idea but surely we could do better" 

So there you have it, an event was born and we now have the MX5 Around Britain 2000 drive. 

Our convoy of cars will leave Whitby at 10am on the 10th June for a fourteen day 3600 mile route around the coastline of mainland Britain. The concept was simple enough, follow the coast, but the first snag was that in our hurry to produce a route we had headed North. So what you might ask, but it soon dawned on me that as we intended to avoid main roads as much as possible we would always be crossing AGAINST TRAFFIC. More focused this time, Gary Smith and I poured over maps in the blazing sun and imagined cresting a rise to see a sweeping bay or a castle on a headland. 

Planning the route wasn't as simple as first thought, it wasn't practicable to follow the coastline at all times, many roads led solely to villages, some ferries had ceased to operate or twenty miles of peninsular roads brought us back to a mile from where we left. We would have to be realistic and use tunnels, bridges and if really unavoidable, a stretch of motorway. Eventually we had a highlighted route on two dozen pages spread across the floor. Gary turned to the computer to produce an easily read guide with colour maps. Next to be planned were the night stopovers based on a daily distance of around 260 miles. 

At a planning meeting held in November we outlined the event and had a firm commitment from enough people to start booking our accommodation through an agency. By the end of 1999 the agency had reneged on their proposal leaving us some weeks behind schedule. Our agreed financial limit was to prove difficult to adhere to and still keep the group together and after many frustrating hours on the telephone we decided to source one or two small hotels and guest houses and leave the choice open. We now have event regalia, rally stickers, brochures, flyers and even our own website. 

The route is complete and the accommodation is confirmed The chosen charity for the event, the RNLI are enthusiastic and are helping us in a plan of action. We will be publishing daily starting points before the event and hope to have daily updates on the Internet. 

Steve Watkins and Gary Smith Event Co-ordinators.