TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Dropped out of school and left home at 17 hoping to scrape a living as a musician. Based in Sheffield, spent time in London and Madrid, in the wine trade, as an English teacher, a motorcycle messenger, in bands, on solo projects, dreaming of one day being able to live on a boat and sail around the world.

Now been a boatowner for over 25 years, working up from plywood Caprice to Hurley 22, fell in love with Colin Archeresque ferrocement Samson C-Mist requiring two major refits during 18 year affair, refitted French-built ferrocement Pegase 10m in south of France and sailed her back to England before moving to the Isle of Skye.

Segelerfahrungen

Learnt to sail as a teenager in a Mirror. Living in London approaching 30, bought a bilge-keel plywood Caprice to start cruising from a swinging mooring on the Thames. Returned to Sheffield, met Dianne and we moved up to a long keel Hurley 22’. We embarked on an anticlockwise circumnavigation of Great Britain via the Caledonian Canal over 3 seasons. I decided to turn my hobbies of sailing and mountaineering into a second career, gradually training up to dinghy Senior Instructor, windsurfing Instructor, Yachtmaster Ocean and Mountain Leader. Fitted out a Samson C-Mist for skippered charter and sail training based in the Humber. Sailed her up to the Hebrides to work a season at the outdoor centre on the Isle of Raasay. Took a job with an activity holiday company on the Mediterranean coast of France where I restored a Pegase 10m and sailed it back to Preston, England via the Azores, Brittany and the Scillies. Dianne and I moved up to the Isle of Skye and cruised the far north-west from Ardnamurchan to the Orkney Islands

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