It could have happened in the middle of the Atlantic – imagine that.

But then, I don’t suppose I would have been in a hurry in mid-Atlantic. Not like I was in a hurry after seeing off my son Hugo on the plane from Grenada back to the UK, and promptly dashing up to Antigua to meet grandson Ben.

But that wasn’t the problem. I made it to English Harbour with 24 hours to spare. I’d even had time to buy some super two-part glue and fix the leak in the dinghy before setting off (Hugo and I had spent half the time pumping it up again – even, on one occasion, pumping it up as we were going along.)

The super two-part glue didn’t work – even after three days to cure on the passage up the Windward Islands, it was leaking as badly as ever. In the end, I took it to Seagull Inflatables. They said it would need a patch on the inside as well (how do you do that?). They’d have it ready tomorrow at the latest.

Then, no sooner did Ben arrive, and I noticed the stitching on the sacrificial strip of the headsail was coming adrift. North Sails could do it the same day.

But with a two-week itinerary already mapped out – Barbuda, St Eustatius, St Kitts and Nevis, Monserrat and back to Jolly Harbour – there wasn’t even time to get any more butter after the yachtie in front of us at the Covent Garden Supermarket pinched ours off the checkout (and we even gave him a lift back in our taxi!)

So, you will understand why we were frustrated to find that not even the trade wind was playing ball. The whole Windy forecast for the Leewards had turned blue for “No wind at all – zilch, nada”. We considered our options over the Antigua Yacht Club’s breakfast (the menu runs to two pages: everything from steak and eggs to something called “chop-up”.) Of course, we could try doing the whole trip in reverse – starting with the shorter passage to Montserrat, even if it meant motoring. The fuelling berth was closed and both the garages were out of diesel…

We had enough, I reckoned. Particularly if we could sail some of the way.

In fact, with three sails up (the headsail goose-winged on a pole and the super-zero set behind the main, we managed three knots for most of the way.

But the wind died around lunchtime as they said it would, and we chugged along, the pair of us laid out under the bimini. The decks too hot to walk on.

And then the engine stopped.

It didn’t lose power or stutter as it might if it had run out of fuel.

It just stopped. And, although it would start again, as soon as I put it in gear, it didn’t want to know.

Looking over the stern, there was something trailing out behind – some sort of pale, diaphanous material. We hooked it up. Fishing net. Lots and lots of fishing net.

Actually, writing this at anchor in Montserrat with the catch stuffed awkwardly into two black bin-liners on the foredeck, I cannot believe quite how much of it there is.

I went down with a knife and cut it off the prop strand by strand. This sounds heroic, but actually, I can only hold my breath for 45 seconds. Thank heavens for the Nemo electric breathing apparatus. I always knew that one day it would do something more important than just help with cleaning the bottom.

So, after breakfast (boiled eggs, toast – the last of the rancid butter) we shall be off to see the abandoned city of Plymouth. Apparently it’s the “modern Pompeii” buried under ash from the 1995 volcanic eruption.

Nothing to it, really…

• I just asked Google about Chop-Up: It is a traditional Antiguan vegetable mash commonly served at breakfast, especially on weekends, alongside saltfish. It consists of boiled and mashed eggplant, pumpkin, okra, spinach or callaloo, creating a soft, flavourful mixture. It is often sautéed with garlic, onions, and sometimes thyme.

Monday 20th April 2026

Just coming up to Antigua

Sailing the direct route is all very well, but the wind shadows in the lee of the islands stretch for miles – and they’re not even proper shadows: one minute you’re in a flat calm, the next, you’re pulling down two reefs, and the boat’s putting her gunwale under anyway.

I woke up grumbling: “This is worse than the Doldrums.”

That was when I discovered I had engine trouble. I’d noticed it a few weeks ago – just as a momentary loss of power, the sort of “cough” which tells you it’s time to change one of the fuel filters. I have a schedule for this: once a year for the main filter, once every six months for the pre-filter. Of course, I never get as far as the reminder popping up on my phone. There’s always a problem before that, and changing filters is my go-to solution for all things mechanical.

It doesn’t always solve the problem, but changing filters has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?

Anyway, this time, I never did get around to it before because I had Hugo with me, and we were always too busy going out for meals. This time, the engine – after any number of warning hiccups – actually stopped.

I changed the little Racor pre-filter: The engine ran just long enough to empty it, and then stopped. I changed the main filter.

It might be relevant to mention that the wind was not shrieking in the rigging while all this was going on (if it had been, I would have been sailing). Instead, I was rolling gently but regularly – which at least meant I could match my rhythmic swaying with the jug of diesel in one hand and the open filter in the other.

The fuel only started slopping into the bilges when I had to hold the filter still to screw it on (that is, still relative to the engine, not the rest of the world.)

It all took so much effort and so much time, that if there was any justice, it would have kept running all the way to Cape Capucin and the return of the trade wind.

But there is no justice. After five minutes, the little 21hp Nanni hesitated, thought about it, thought better of it, gasped its last, and died.

I do remember standing there, thinking that I had been asking for trouble, putting all the tools away. I got the spanners out again. Stage Two of fuel starvation involves checking the flow from the tank. Stage Two is not very pleasant.

I have a 50-litre tank. It is tucked away under the port cockpit seat, behind the engine. I believe it has been there since the boat was built in 1973. It has no inspection hatch, no access. There is no way of cleaning it. The time to address this shortcoming would have been when I had the engine out for a new propshaft and cutlass bearing sometime around 2022 – but the boat had been sinking at the time, and I had other things on my mind.

The thing that makes checking the flow from the tank a last resort is that you have to disconnect the pipe from the pre-filter and, if nothing comes out, get down with your head in the engine bay and blow into the pipe (which tastes of diesel – which is very unfair if there isn’t any diesel coming out of it.)

I got down with my head in the engine bay. I got my mouth around the pipe (it reminded me of the straw for the Piña Colada in the beach bar in the Limon Cays – except for the taste.) I blew.

What is supposed to happen is that you blow, and you can hear the bubbles in the tank. Of course, all you are doing is blowing the muck back into the tank so it can block the pipe again (just not today, if you wouldn’t mind).

But this time, nothing happened. No sound of bubbles echoing in the half-empty tank. I blew harder. I blew until I was blue in the face – and received various warning signals that I should stop blowing, but you don’t need to know the details. Anyway, this wasn’t working.

I fetched the dinghy pump. This is a serious implement that came with the defunct True Kit dinghy from New Zealand. It has a pressure gauge that goes up to 14psi. The dinghy pump it was that cleared the blockage in the outlet pipe of the loo in Santa Marta (and caused several people in the marina to think there had been a gas explosion). I attached it to the pipe, sealing the joint with a wodge of gaffer tape the size of my fist.

I pressed down on the pump handle. It wouldn’t go more than halfway. I tried again – wouldn’t even go halfway. The pressure on the gauge rose alarmingly. Suddenly, there was some sort of commotion in the tank. The handle went “clonk” at the end of its run.

I was back in business. I motored placidly the rest up the coast of Dominica (interrupted only by short-lived blasts of 15kts apparent and then back to nothing).

It wasn’t until I switched off for the last time that I noticed the smell – rather like the smell that had accompanied Hugo’s observation: “There’s smoke coming out of the engine.”

There was too. I may have mentioned this before, and on that occasion, the heat exchanger was dry. At least I found a hole in the pipe. This time, there was no explanation – a good job, I keep plenty of coolant – anyway, I was supposed to be awake. At one point, we were only three miles offshore. I needed something to do…

Sunday 19^th April 2026

20 miles west of Dominica

Wind: E2. Barometer 1016

Distance to Antigua; 98M

It’s hardly going to be more than three days, but it seems like a voyage already. The last time I looked, we were doing seven knots bang on course for English Harbour.

Of course, if I did sail the direct course for English Harbour, it would mean crossing a good bit of solid ground on Guadeloupe, but with a small detour, we should be there by Monday afternoon – plenty of time. Ben doesn’t land until after lunch on Tuesday.

Just at the moment, I’ve been sitting in the cockpit, reading Peter Townsend’s second book. Peter Townsend was the Spitfire ace who became equerry to King George VI and, more importantly, fell in love with Princess Margaret – well, if The Crown is to be believed, Margaret threw herself at him, and he didn’t have much chance.

Since we can assume that everyone has seen The Crown, I won’t repeat the story of how this ruined both their lives (alternatively, just ask and I’ll pontificate). What I didn’t know was that he married again, went to live in France and wrote the definitive book about the Battle of Britain Duel of Eagles – that’s the one I’ve just finished. He followed it up with Duel in the Dark, the story of the Blitz and his part in it, leading a night fighter squadron when the only hope of finding the enemy was a large helping of luck.

*

Maybe the sensation of a proper voyage is helped by taking the direct route. The Windward Islands are arranged like a bow, bending to the left as they go north. The direct route is therefore the bowstring, and pretty soon, you’re well offshore. Yesterday, I was 30 miles off St Vincent. Now the distance to Martinique is 50 miles. By Sunday evening, I’ll be closing Guadeloupe.

But it does mean there’s hardly anybody else here – just the occasional tanker on its way up from Venezuela, and they keep well out of my way. I had to reef a couple of times for rain squalls, and at one point, the vane for the Hydrovane slipped from the vertical to the horizontal. I remembered just in time to put a line on it before I started fiddling. Imagine if I lost it. Should I carry a spare?

While thinking of Hawkins and his vane (I call the Hydrovane “Hawkins”), some while ago, the fabric started to split. They warn you this is going to happen – it’s the ultraviolet light – and I have a spare. But it’s my only spare, and I have a long trip coming up, so Hugo and I started sticking it together every time we took it down. It is now covered in bits of black duct tape attached with a variety of different glues – I thought it would be useful to find out which was best. It turns out they all work, and the vane is still going, although I’m not sure I ought to turn up to Antigua Race Week with it in its present state.

*

I woke up when everything landed on top of me. That’s what happened in the Great Knockdown a couple of years ago, although this morning, it didn’t include the fridge – just the new extra-strong glue for the dinghy, a bag of chain markers and the spare cabin lamp left over from when I bought one too many.

Still, it was a rude awakening. Outside, there was a lot of flapping and crashing going on. When I went to bed, I wondered whether I should reef the main – it didn’t really need it, but I like the idea of a quiet night. In the end, of course, I didn’t – and now this.

I poked my head out – and found we didn’t have a reefed headsail (I thought I’d at least done that). Instead, it turned out I had full sail up in 21kts. The Rival can cope with this – just not comfortably. I reefed both sails and went back for breakfast. I’m so out of practice after having Hugo for three weeks that yesterday, I hadn’t made the overnight porridge. Today was an improvement – although I’d forgotten how much water to add and overdid it.

Still, I did get to try the new nutmeg syrup. I bought this to go with the Bob’s Red Mill Pancake Mix left me by the Canadians on the catamaran. Nutmeg is a speciality of Grenada, and I got to like it over breakfast in the One Love Bar (two pancakes, syrup and eggs sunnyside up). All I need now is a second frying pan.

Saturday 18^th April 2026

30 miles west of St Vincent

Wind: NE 4. Barometer: 1013

Distance to Antigua: 212M

Why does it always have to be a race?

I’m on the way from Grenada to Antigua. I have 3 ½ days to do it. I should be all right, it’s 350 miles, and the trade wind is obliging with 18kts of close reach. Of course, the Caribbean Current would rather I went to Costa Rica – and, I must say, I would have no objection, but my Grandson, Ben, is flying to Antigua on Tuesday, so that is where I have to go.

By Tuesday.

I was supposed to leave yesterday. My youngest son, Hugo, had just flown back after three weeks of hammering up to Martinique and dawdling back through the Grenadines (and yes, we did have dinner at Basil’s Bar on Mustique and lobster on the beach in the Tobago Cays.)

Actually, it was just as well I had Hugo with me, because the anchor windlass packed up on the morning after we arrived in the middle of the night in Bequia blithely paying out 85m of chain.

So that meant a morning on the dock at Spice Island Marine getting it fixed – and then the dentist to get a bridge fitted to fill the gap where a baby tooth collapsed (at the age of 77!)

Except, when I arrived on time for the appointment, they hadn’t finished making it. Come back tomorrow. This was particularly annoying because I had rushed my lunch with the three Canadians from the catamaran next door.

So, one way and another, I was a full 24 hours late in leaving (even if it did mean the Canadians gave me all the fresh food they couldn’t leave on the boat or take back to Vancouver.)

*

Doomscrolling, they call it. Hugo was always telling me off for wasting my life away on Facebook.

I would tell him it was work – if I found a sailing post that I had already addressed in the blog, I could post a link. It’s called “traffic”.

Except that somehow, he would always catch me looking at Trump and his latest madness: There’s just so much of it, and the more you click on it, the more you get. Half the time it was AI, said Hugo (how did he know?)

And now I have been caught out good and proper. Late at night (it would be late at night – Trump always posts late at night, it’s an age thing), I saw a post about him being so pissed with the Pope calling him out over Iran that he went and cancelled an $11million federal grant to a Catholic children’s charity in Miami.

Now, admittedly the Miami Herald, the Daily Beast, CBS and a whole lot of other news organisations, ran the same story, but I got pulled up by an Australian sailor and Trump fan who pointed out that in fact the funding was pulled back in March – before this latest spat.

The Aussie called me John “Cut and Paste” Passmore and said that I, of all people, should know better.

He’s right of course. Must fact-check. No more sharing in the small hours. Hell, no more doomscrolling in the small hours.

But it is addictive, isn’t it?

Anyway, I’m suddenly finding myself a whole lot busier. Having Hugo aboard for three weeks meant that my digital education has taken a giant leap forward. For one thig he got out the GoPro which I bought more than a year ago, completely failed to understand and put away in the focsle to rot.

Now the plan is to accompany the blog with video, and we certainly filmed a lot, although he insisted I should film myself doing interesting things – reefing, hoisting the Super Zero (the wrong side of the headsail sheets), pulling up the anchor by hand. There is a good ten minutes of this, filmed from behind and featuring two straining bottoms.

I take a different view: There are any number of hugely successful YouTube sailing channels featuring regular high-quality video. Steve and Janet of Sailing Fair Isle used to work in television. Riley and Elayna with La Vagabonde send theirs off for professional editing every week. I can’t compete with that – and so I shouldn’t try.

What makes the oldmansailing blog special is that it’s written – and there are people who still like to read. – and some are kind enough to say they like my writing. But also, I notice that some of my YouTube videos get a lot of views even though they show not much more than the boat going about her business at sea. I can understand this: I spend hours watching the waves (it’s better than watching Facebook Reels). So I propose to record the blog posts and add them as a voice-over to whatever is happening out there.

Right now, what’s happening is that we’re clipping along at five knots in 17kts apparent 30 miles off the coast of St Vincent.

With enormous pride, I can tell you that my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier – a Wonderful Life with ADHD, is now available on Audible, read by the inimitable Charles Robert Fox, who narrated Old Man Sailing, the Good Stuff and at least two of the Voyage books.

But this is the big one. This is the book I am really proud of. It was the first to be written (although the last to be published).

When I was 68, Tamsin my wife, raised the possibility that I might have this thing that makes 5% of the world’s population slightly odd – at least, when viewed from the perspective of the other 95%.

And sure enough, when I went for the test, they told me that not only did I have it, but I was in the “1% of the most severe cases”.

At last, I had achieved something!

On the other hand, it can be a crushing experience to have your whole life explained to you when you are practically at the end of it. I dealt with it the way I deal with everything: I wrote about it.

It made pretty depressing reading. If this was an autobiography, I didn’t much care for the central character.

So, I wrote it again.

And again.

Over the course of seven years, I rewrote that book six times. Each time, I looked for the fun. I looked for the jokes, the uplifting stories. Most of all, I wanted an exciting life – Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier…

And it was all there: First love at 14, the obsession with boats – the thrill in discovering that people would pay me to write (I would have paid them to let me).

Charles Fox, after narrating the last nail-biting chapter, wrote to me: “I really enjoyed the book – quite a whirlwind between funny reminiscences and very personal observations. I think this will do very well.”

I could have told him that. Reviewers of the first edition (before I changed the title) said:

Excellent book, interesting and amusing; an honest review of a life spent chasing an idea. Many painful truths I recognise in my own life, perhaps I too have ADHD? Not written as a self-help book, but it certainly made me reconsider my life decisions and maybe answered some questions. Thank you.

..

Insight into an ocean adventurer’s ADHD history and coping strategy – not for the faint-hearted! John Passmore is soo readable, always a real pleasure to read
..

The book was interesting from the very beginning. So honest and open, unlike some other personal memoirs. John knows instinctively how to take his reader on the journey of a life well lived.
John would argue that he is forgetful, but I would say that the details which he has recalled from his childhood and right through an eventful life make this an exceptional read. Entertaining and informative.

..

Even under the new title, someone found it: “Well written, great point of view and sense of humor.”

If you don’t have an Audible account, and would like to order the book as part of their free trial, you can do so through my link. Then, if you carry on, Amazon will send me a little thank-you: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0GXL6LPSX/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-507044&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_507044_rh_uk