Nobody is more surprised than me.

The oldmansailing Instagram account is now closing in on 90,000 followers. Across all social media platforms, the short videos I have been posting have encouraged well over 100,000 people to follow oldmansailing in one form or another.

Who would have thought…

The trouble is, I have always been rather disparaging of sailing YouTubers, particularly the young and attractive ones who never seem to wear many clothes. I’m probably jealous.

Also, isn’t there something rather odd about people who can’t pull up an anchor without getting out the GoPro and filming themselves doing it?

And now I’m one of them.

So, I had better explain how it came about: A couple of months ago, after flying from Grenada to Salzburg for the family skiing holiday, I flew back with my son Hugo for three weeks of champagne cruising around the Grenadines – champagne referring not to the wine, but the sparking spray as we thrashed up and down the islands with the trade wind on the beam and the water temperature never dropping below 29°C.

One day, I got out the GoPro and asked Hugo, “Can you show me how to use this thing?”

When he was about 13, he used to ski with an early model stuck on top of his helmet. Now he’s 23 and couldn’t believe how much technology had moved on.

Painstakingly, he taught me about “Quick Capture” and “Frame rate”. Together, we examined the 101 attachments that came with the kit (head, chest, adhesive, flexible…)

We filmed each other, the sails, the waves, my feet – that was by accident. I have promised never to do it again. But gradually, I learned.

While all this was going on – in fact, for the best part of a year – I had noticed a niggling worry about money.

When I embarked on this life back in 2017, I was not entirely sure how I was going to pay for it. I had a fair bit coming in, but also, I had a family. Indeed, at that stage, four children who were still far from independent.

However, as always, I stood with Mr Micawber: “Something will turn up.” I said. It always had.

Sure enough, the Old Man Sailing book came to the rescue. People liked it. They told their friends. Yachting Monthly called it a “Word of Mouth Bestseller” – well, it was Number One in the Amazon Sailing Books category.

But, over the years, sales declined. I suppose that’s always the way with Bestsellers. How many people today go into Waterstones for The DaVinci Code?

I wrote more books – that was the answer. My old classmate Peter James has written 38 books and sold 23million copies. That was all I needed to do.

I’ve managed nine so far.

Meanwhile, I discovered Skool.

If you haven’t come across this, it is an internet platform designed for people to turn their skill, their hobby, or just their passion into a course for other people with the same interest – and, like everything on the internet, there is the opportunity to “monetize” it. You charge for different levels of engagement.

In a blinding flash, I realised that I could transfer the blog to Skool. I could add a “paid” level for the GoPro videos. I can sit for hours and watch the sea. Surely other people would like to do that – or, more specifically, other people would pay to do that…

Painstakingly, I copied and pasted the entire nine years of this blog from WordPress to Skool – all the pictures, all the comments. It took forever. Finally, I launched it. I invited people to pay for the videos.

Nobody wanted to.

I offered a once-a-week video call (imagine that from the Southern Ocean!)

Nobody wanted to pay for that either (especially since I wasn’t actually in the Southern Ocean).

With my tail between my legs, I begged (and paid) the clever chaps at LCN.com to rescue the old site from their electronic dustbin.

And, while all this was going on, I was still playing with the GoPro, until one day, without really thinking about it, I posted a little video on Instagram.

Then, something that had never happened before: A notification. 25 people had “liked” my video. Then 50… 100.

That was on May 18^th. Today is June 13^th – not a month later, and those little videos – none of them more than two-and-a-half minutes long, most of them not much more than a minute – have racked up 4.4million views.

And that’s just Instagram. There are another 2.2million on Facebook. YouTube: 347,000. TikTok…

And the likes … thousands of likes. And comments. Fifty comments a day: “You’re an inspiration”,  “I want your life”, “I sold my boat because I thought I was too old. Now, I’m going to buy another” – and of course: “How do you sleep? ”, “Don’t  you get lonely?”

There was one from a man who noticed that around the cabin I had pictures of “beautiful women in bikinis” – Tamsin, back in the 90s.

The one that did probably more than any other to spark the algorithms was: “Where’s your harness?”

There’s nothing Instagram likes more than a post that encourages discussion (have you ever seen a fisherman in a harness?) Eventually, I made another video: “I used to wear a harness, but now I’m 77. Health & Safety doesn’t apply.” Besides, everybody had seen the photo of the steeplejacks building the Rockefeller Centre, sitting on the girder eating their lunch – well, think of me as one of them. If I fall off, it’s my own lookout.

It didn’t help. I just got deluged with people asking about those who would have to risk their lives looking for me (at considerable expense).

“Ah”, I fired back. “My next-of-kin have instructions to say I don’t want a Search & Rescue operation.”

“No good,” replied somebody who obviously had something to do with Search & Rescue. “How do they know your wife doesn’t want you dead?”

Good point. I have now written to HM Coastguard as follows:

I wonder whether there is any way you can keep on file my request that no search and rescue operation should be initiated if it is suspected that I have fallen overboard from my sailing yacht.

I should explain:

I am 77 years old and, a few years ago, I decided no longer to wear a harness at sea. I found it cumbersome and knew that if I were to fall over, it was unlikely I would have the strength to pull myself back aboard.

Also, now that I have well over 100,000 social media followers who watch my daily videos, I am sure I would face intense pressure to give up and put myself into a care home.

Frankly, I would rather spend my last moments treading water and watching my boat sail into the sunset.

On the other hand, if I should hit the proverbial container, sink, and activate my EPIRB, then yes, please do come and get me.

The reason for asking this now is that I had assumed that if there should be an emergency, you would contact my next-of-kin, and they are under instructions to request no search & rescue. However, someone made the point that you would still go ahead because you could not be sure my wife didn’t want me dead!

I hope you can help in this. I hate to think of anyone getting involved in an expensive and, possibly hazardous operation to rescue someone who would prove so ungrateful.

 

Meanwhile, the Algorithm had gone into hyperdrive, and the book sales were skyrocketing. At every opportunity, I posted replies with little additions like: “As anyone who has read my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier will be aware…” or “There’s a whole chapter on this in my first book Old Man Sailing…”

It was like Christmas. Every December, sales leap from 100 a month to 200 or 300. This month – and I’m writing this early in the morning of the 14^th – they stand at 141. That’s going to put me right back to where I was before I started worrying about money.

And it won’t be the end of it. In the Canaries, a few years ago, I met Steve and Judy from Sailing Fair Isle. They make a full-time living off YouTube – and that includes flying visits to the Annapolis Boat Show to be lauded for the “Episode of the Year”. Obviously, marine equipment suppliers beg them to test their latest products (there’s no need to return them).

But you need 4,000 watch hours before YouTube turns on the money. How long was it going to take me to get to 4,000 hours at 1.5 minutes at a time?

I had an idea. I put together a 20-minute video of “scenes from Samsara” – me in the cockpit tacking, the water going past. Me reading a book, the water going past. Me scampering about the deck (more controversy – no harness, of course). For the audio track, I read from the blog. The “watch hours” shot up – only 1,648 to go!

I will be able to buy a new mainsail – 100m of Cromos stainless steel anchor chain. I will be able to pay for all the meals and drinks on the skiing holiday without compromising the “self-insurance” fund.

But why was I reading from the blog? People could get that for nothing. The following Sunday, I read from Old Man Sailing, the book – just the first chapter. I called it The Oldmansailing Book Club.

And here’s the kicker: At the end, I explained that, next week, I would be reading the first chapter from The Good Stuff – and the week after that The Voyage #1. If you want to know what happens next, you’ll have to wait nine weeks for that title to come round again.

Or, of course, you could buy the book…

How long can this go on? I have no idea, but with the Francis Chichester 60^th Anniversary Challenge coming up, I think we can say that the next year is assured.

After that? Well, I’ll think about that tomorrow. Something will turn up…