The Francis Chichester 60th Anniversary Challenge.
Sailing single-handed around the world at the age of 77 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the record-breaking voyage of Sir Francis Chichester
Follow the journey ~
Click here to track John live on PolarSteps.com
Watch short daily video clips at ~
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The book of the voyage: Samsara Circles the World will be published on Amazon in paperback and Kindle – or you can read it as it is written in instalment form as The Full Ocean Experience (available online, and audio read by the author, with a weekly Zoom call for discussion – small monthly subscription, cancel anytime.)
It is not a race, there is no organising committee, no rules – just one old sailor wanting to give a nod to another.
In 1966, nobody had sailed around the world without stopping. It was considered impossible – and doubly impossible singlehanded. Making it round with only one stop like the fully-crewed clipper ships might be doable, just.
Francis Chichester was a London map publisher. Before the war, he had set several records in small aircraft (and nearly died while attempting to become the first person to fly solo around the world.)
After the war, he turned to sailing – and, in 1960, won the first singlehanded transatlantic race in his yacht Gipsy Moth III.
He might have gone on to make a textbook circumnavigation – if he had set off in the same boat. But he had a wealthy cousin who promised to build him a yacht to beat the 100-day time of the Cutty Sark. The building of Gipsy Moth IV went over budget by half as much again. She was delivered six months late, was bigger and heavier than originally planned, and heeled to 35° in the slightest puff of wind. She is still sailing today – and recognised as possibly the worst sailing yacht ever launched.
And yet Chichester took her all the way round. When he reached Sydney there was a newspaper campaign begging him not to set off again and face certain death in the waters of Cape Horn. But he did – and sailed home in triumph.
A quarter of a million people turned out on Plymouth Hoe to welcome him home. The Queen knighted him at Greenwich with the sword Elizabeth I had used for Sir Francis Drake. The television audience rivalled the moon landing two years later.
Sir Francis Chichester was the most famous sailor in the world – a national hero. A household name.
Then, the following year, a merchant navy officer named Robin Knox-Johnston went round without stopping, and everybody forgot about Chichester. If you mention his name today, anyone under the age of 45 will say: “Who?”
But John Passmore remembers.
Passmore is the Old Man Sailing – a retired war correspondent who reinvented himself as a blogger and author of sailing travelogues written during a series of ocean crossings and detailing the day-by-day minutiae of life at sea.
He was eleven years old when his parents took him to the yacht club to hear a talk by the then Mr Chichester about his victory in the first Singlehanded Transatlantic Race.
The young Passmore was transfixed. Afterwards he announced that one day he would race across the Atlantic singlehanded.
He remembers his mother saying: “That’s nice, dear.”
But he did – in 1988.
And now he is following his hero in his circumnavigation. He set off from Plymouth on August 27th with a send-off from the Royal Western Yacht Club, just like Chichester. He expects to arrive in Sydney sometime in January. His boat is smaller and slower but, he would argue, one of the best sailing yachts ever designed.
Indeed, in many ways the two voyages could not be more different. Chichester had a Marconi radio the size of a small suitcase and was at the mercy of sunspots and fluctuations in the ionosphere. Passmore has Starlink and faster internet than he would get at home.
Chichester had to wait until the voyage was over before publishing his classic Gipsy Moth Circles the World. Passmore is posting daily chapters from Samsara Circles the World in real time – his readers, waiting on tenterhooks to discover what happened when the storm hit or whether he will fix the torn sail…
And for those who prefer audiobooks, every chapter is available to stream, and naturally, it is read by the author himself.
This is, the old man says, the biggest thing he has ever done.
Follow the journey ~
Click here to track John live on PolarSteps.com
Watch short daily video clips at ~
Instagram — YouTube — TikTok
Or sign up for The Full Ocean Experience (small monthly subscription, a new chapter every day, cancel anytime.)
As a pilot, I found Chichester’s aviation exploits fantastically frustrating. He wrote of attempted take off, after attempted take off, which were classic symptoms of a leaking float and an underpowered aeroplane. He, of course, he first came a cropper at Lord Howe Island through a rather nasty storm. His takeoffs read like a Schneider Trophy Takeoff, where aeroplanes that were powered by 37 Litre, 12 cylinder howling monsters, churning out over 2000 spooked horses via a supercharger as big as a dustbin, were feats within themselves, let alone what followed. Whats more, they needed a very big toothpick up front indeed to absorb all that power, and as speed was the primary object, had fantastically course pitches on said tooth pick….which to make matters worse, was fixed in pitch. Now, this is where things get interesting when you put all this clobber onto an aircraft that uses water for its takeoff and landing (airfields in those days tended to resemble a cow field with excruciating short takeoff paths). With such a big toothpick up front, that means rather long legs down to each float. The whole object of the exercise is to take off generally into wind for many obvious reasons. But our Schneider hero’s quickly learnt that in order to achieve anything like an into wind take off, they actually started their run pointing down wind in the opposite direction! Why I hear you ask? For reasons any sailor will readily understand when they get their had around the mechanics of whats about to happen…..so if you’ve got this far, I might have your attention by now?
As our erstwhile hero, strapped into this juddering monster without any form of brake, even at a sedate idle they must have been a pig. So now imagine when you startle over 2000 nervy, dustbin sized supercharged clanging horses into action; a lot begins to happen…all at once! First thing that becomes apparent as each of those 12 cylinders quite literally spat out their fire of fury through exhaust stubs as long as grandads smoking pipe, was the sheer racquet, not recommended if you value your hearing in your old age…if you got to live that long. The second thing was, all that noise meant that the big toothpick up front was now whirling about the place at considerably more speed it was a few seconds prior! With that stupidly high pitch now hopelessly trying to claw the air, but due to the entire assembly of constituent parts making up the entire aeroplane travelling forward initially at low speed, it had the effect of a boats propellor cavitating mercifully in trapped air…. This of course translates to hopeless acceleration, despite the din and general vibration, only to be compounded by what the sea was currently throwing at you as you sat aloft on a seat rather akin to a lifeguards chair suspended 10 feet off the sandy foreshore, a rather curious thing happened. There is a law in physics that states that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction…I believe one of Newton’s laws (who BTW, went to school that I sent my two ungrateful lads to). Newton decided to call it his “Third Law of Motion.” Now, I’m not sure if Newton worked this out on Southampton water unleashing 2000 frightened horses, but he was definitely onto something…..
With that huge wooden thing up front now whirring merrily away, Newtons Third law now becomes very adroit, as it becomes a rather large gyro-scope, trying to twist itself around the centreline line of said large toothpick! So the opposite reaction comes very much into play, which on land aeroplanes, is a lot less of a problem as Mother Earth tends to be far less forgiving than water and instantly pushes back with everything that 2000 frightened horses can throw at her.
Not so with water…. Displacement now comes into play, as effectively that force gets transferred unevenly onto one float, which with this added force (akin to adding weight), means that in order to keep the whole lot afloat, it comes down to displacement, something Brunel understood only too well when he built the worlds first Iron-Clad ship that so-called experts of the day, said would go to the bottom faster than a hungry otter….
So with one float effectively weighing more and being displaced further down into the water, whilst the other float experienced the exact opposite and rose correspondingly further out of the water, even a lay-man can predict that drag was far greater on one side than “tother.”
Now, at low speed, your rudder can’t do very much, because your designer built it as small as he dared, because a whacking great thing meant lots of drag, so much so, he figured that pesky drag would multiply at a rate inversely proportional to speed…the very thing that the entire edifice was built for! Worse still, the designers considered rudders on the floats themselves as woke, so they left those out…far better to simply shout at the hapless jockey sitting on his lifeguards deck-chair as to how useless he was if he complained.
As this is getting rather long, I suppose I had better “get on with it” and back to my point about our hero, dear old Francis.
So the takeoff path became a study in curvature (not sure if Newton had a law for this, as it appears he seems to have run out of inspiration after his very apt, to our story, ‘Third’ law) as speed initially slowly increased. Drag being extremely “one-sided” and a rudder slow to get out of bed, the hapless jockey had no other choice beyond cunning and guile, was forced to sit out the law of physics until the reticent rudder decided to become effective at increasing speed, hopefully by now, somewhere near pointing into the desired direction?
Now, our hero, Francis, didn’t have 2000 frightened thoroughbreds up front, he had about 60 sedate draft-horses up front. That means a far smaller tooth pick and shorter legs. His pitch on his prop was far more sensible; a compromise between good climbing performance and an adequate cruise speed to while away the afternoon. Yes, the same of Newtons laws came into play, but dear old Francis had another advantage up his sleeve, relatively speaking, a relative far greater rudder area. So all things considered, Francis being wise, after considering tidal flows, wind and waves, in a sheltered bay, would only need to lay off a few degrees at the start of his takeoff run, with his rudder far more effective not that much faster than you or I could run…ok “jog” being perhaps more appropriate?
Now we get to the bit that infuriated me no end. Francis had a leaking float, which to some extent, rather nicely simulated our Schneider hero’s, in which time and time again, he pushed himself and the aircraft to near destruction, rather than sort the whole sorry mess out. He seemed to survive on bloody-mindedness and irrational decision making, ignoring totally, what his trusty aeroplane was trying to scream at him. There can be no doubt as to his bravery, or skill he used in his off-set navigation technique, despite his previous exploits and experience of flying his Moth all the way from England to Australia. You see, to me Francis committed one of the biggest sins as an aviator, learn the language of the aeroplane….thats why he frustrated me reading how he again and again attempted one failed takeoff after another as his float took on water, in which he largely discounted due to the NZ military declaring them water tight! To me it was rather akin badgering a rather uninterested wife after a few pints down at the local…sooner or later you’re going to get slapped…rather hard!
Francis Chichester was without doubt a brave and skilled navigator, but like us all, he had his faults too…..
H John Love your story and enjoying your experiences My brother & I did many thousands of miles offshore in our 26ft folk boat “Whisper of Hollowshore” in early 80’s (Madeira, Canaries & the Med etc) so we love the comparisons.
I was a helicopter crew member two tours in Vietnam and I wouldn’t have the balls to do what you’re doing.
I don’t get sailing. I had a life threatening experience as a pax on a 16ft sailboat in the middle of Lake Tahoe.
Love following your Blog, John and seeing your progress. The man I really admire was Sir Alec Rose and his “Lively Lady.” He had no financial backing and underook the circum navigation on his own. By all accounts “Gipsy Moth IV” was very difficult to handle for a single hander
Keep safe and well. God bless you.
Stephen
Agreed! The book “Lively Lady” holds a special place on my bookshelf, I have read it multiple times, an amazing feat and well told. I’ve also been a supporter of the Lively Lady Project, who have done a wonderful job preserving the legacy of both Sir Alec Rose and his yacht – https://www.livelylady.org/
Hi John,
Great trip! Respect for you!
I follow you now on all the socials
Good wind and stay safe!
Roger
Gouda
Netherlands
Cheers ! John
You are an inspiration to all us old blokes . Safe travels .
Really enjoying you posts John
A real inspiration to never stop doing adventurous stuff
john, have you spotted the Golden Globe group? Enjoying your book.
Massive respect to you. I am loving the updates and daily challenges and solutions.
I watch your posts almost daily – a lifelong dream of mine as well – taking each day one challenge at a time. I’m curious – what are your favorite parts of life on the open seas, and how do you pass the time on board outside of daily needs?
id like to know how big your boat is, sir
32 feet. You can learn all about his boat here –
https://www.oldmansailing.com/the-boat/
32 ft
John,
Wishing you good wind and calm seas! I Love your adventure, wit, and writing!
Sail on! — until the morrow…. 🙂
Sheila
Your doing it old man,
stay safe and may the God’s be with you.
Hi John,
I love what you do and your passion for sailing. I believe you’re a great inspiration to us all.
I reckon you probably think this is spam and probably ignor it but here it goes anyway. If I were to create you a merchandise website and sell “oldmansailing” clothing and gifts. Would you endorse it.
I have a friend involved in the Americas cup circuit who could probably help boost your followers. And I by creating a brand I recon that’s the best way to do it.
Anyway if you are interested drop me an email and I’ll send you my t shirt design.
Until next time
Happy to see your adventure is progress nicely. You are an inspiration to this 79 year old who enjoys your updates while you are free from the non-sense of our modern world. Bravo! Bon Voyage. Keep the favebook postings coming.
We can see you track on the map .What is the other track further west?
that was earlier this year. If you click on the spots on the western route you can see blog posts dated back in January.
Thanks