Offshore Sailing

My experience of offshore sailing began at school. I I was already actively involved in the school dinghy sailing activities iincluding racing in the school team and joining in local club racing activities. Then, in 1972 I was given the opportunity to spend 2 weeks aboard the Sail Training Ship Malcolm Miller In the 2 weeks we crossed the channel, visiting Camaret and Alderney as well as various ports on the south coast, covering a total of 780nm. The following summer I was invited to join a school friend and his parents for a cruise on their Kings Ametyst yacht. We spent nearly 3 weeks exploring west from their base in Bursledon and visiting many southwest ports, Newtown Creek, Poole, Weymouth, Dartmouth, Fowey and others.

That was it for many years until I published, on an earlier version of this website, the tale of Three Men in a Boat.

One of the people who read this was Martin, a friend from my teenage years, whom I had not seen for many years but who was still in touch with my parents. He invited my Dad, my two brothers, my elder son and myself to join us for a weekend on his J120, Tearaway Too.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend in the Solent, sailing it's length and visiting Yarmouth, the Bealieu River and the Medina River. Pictures of the weekend can be found in the gallery here. At the end of the weekend Martin invited me to join him for racing, and I've raced with him through until the end of the 2015 season, when he took a break from racing. Since then I've been inshore racing on Footloose, an Elan 350 and offshore on J-Fever, another J-120.

I have also taken advantage of other cruising and racing opportunities. I raced the Fastnet in 2011 and have had several charter holidays in the West Country, usually heading across to the Channel Islands.

Since late 2015 I have also been working as a Sail Cruising Instructor. See my Professional Sailing section for more detaill.