index

Welcome to the

'CodeCruise Challenge'

where, by cracking a few codes and solving a few puzzles, you could win a 'chauffeur-driven' week's cruise for two on the French inland waterways in this luxurious 50ft Dutch barge - the 'Bon Viveur'.

To win your cruise, you'll first have to solve a series of five sets of codes and puzzles. When we have received 100 correct solutions, we'll email those who have sent them in with the entry code to the Grand Final. The winner of the cruise will be the first to email us the solution to the Grand Final.

There are no impenetrable clues, unbreakable cyphers or unsolvable puzzles. You don't have to be a world class code-breaker. On the other hand, you will need logic, basic intelligence, a bit of general knowledge, especially about France, some lateral thinking and an ability to use Internet information sources.

The format for each stage has three parts - (Part I) entry code, (Part II) 'codeword' puzzle and (Part III) exit code.

In the Part I, image clues provide the keys to the later 'codeword' puzzles. In each row of images, those inside the blue border represent a number and a letter - not necessarily in that order.

The image(s) inside the red border represent a confirmation (or otherwise) of your solution to the image clues inside the blue border. Here is a simple example:

Inside the blue border, the first image (of the Ku Klux Klan) represents 'K'.

The second (of Napoleon) refers to the day in March 1796 of his wedding to Joséphine, the 9th.

Inside the red border, the image is of K9 from 'Dr. Who'. The interpretation of this row of images would be that, in Part II (the 'codeword' puzzle) the number '9' represents the letter 'K'.

Below the row(s) of images, there might also be a cryptic clue, the solution to which will be one of the words in the puzzle. The location of this word will have to be deduced from its length and/or from the position within it of any recurrence of the same letter(s) and/or from the position in the grid of any letters already deduced.

Part II and Part III are self-explanatory.

If you want to have a go, you might consider printing these pages out. This would free up your computer for the purpose of accesssing

'Google' ('web' and 'images'), 'Wikpedia'

and other on-line information sources.

Stage I

Part I

RIQUET MADE A DUD CLAIM IN DISARRAY (5,2,4)

Part II

You might wonder why I have not made this site more interactive. The answer is that, if I did, anyone who knows about these things could too easily hack into the source code and find some of the answers. If you were doing the puzzles just for fun or as a form of 'cerebral calesthenics', that wouldn't be a problem,. But, on this occasion, there is quite a lot of money at stake, so I'm being ultra-cautious. The fact that, as a humble boat builder, this is already the summit of my web-design skills is, of course, entirely coincidental. I could have got in some web site designers. But doing it myself ensures that I'm the only one who knows the solutions.

Part III

Use your solution to the 'codewords' puzzle above to decrypt this code:

When you think you've got the answer, key it into your browser's address window using the following format:

www.codecruise.com/ (your solution) .html

So, if you thought the answer was 'greengages', you would key in

www.codecruise.com/greengages.html

If your solution is correct, you will go through to the next stage. If not, or if you've mis-keyed, you'll have to try again.

If you want to find out about the boats we build, have a look at our web site:

Bon Viveur Boats