This is a cautionary tale. It is mostly for my benefit. I should begin by telling you that, even though I am writing this sitting on the lee berth while tacking laboriously along the South coast of Ireland in the vague direction of Baltimore, I have my phone beside me with the timer set for … Read more
Bosham Channel in Chichester harbour, after the pubs shut, sometime in 1934: A young man in an enormous clinker dinghy rowed backwards and forwards in the pitch darkness looking for his boat. The young man was my father and this was a story that was told and re-told so that it became the stuff of … Read more
The mother of all broaches played out to the accompaniment of Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”. It happened somewhere off the Grand Banks during the 1988 Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. I was having a clear-out recently and found the article I wrote for Yachting World. That was in the days when you cut … Read more
Harbour rots ships and men – and I had spent long enough in harbour painting the decks, trying to work out why the anchor windlass has a mind of its own… All I want to do is to get going. If I could head for the Channel Islands tomorrow, I’d be off like a shot. … Read more
