Dirty, wet and hungry; riding 30ft waves on a boat which was permanently tilted at 45°, I realised that this experience wasn’t quite what I’d been sold on that induction…
Learning curve
‘We suddenly heard a loud noise from the engine. We had no idea what it was and it got us worried ’
The Kiel Canal provides a convenient shortcut between the North Sea and the Baltic, or as the Germans call it, the Nordsee and the Ostsee. We Europeans call it the…
‘£10,000 and two broken engines in to my yacht purchase, I realised I may have made a mistake…’
Just about every middle-aged man dreams of buying a boat and going on a sailing adventure. The sense of freedom, the wind blowing across your balding pate without a care…
‘We were in a race against time’ – how a mad dash by these sailors prevented them being stranded
Five hours into our madcap race, we feared that we weren’t going to make it. We knew the odds were stacked against us, but we had no choice but to…
‘We spotted people in the water, fighting for their lives’
Under reefed mainsail and engine we were heading westwards, close to the rocky cliffs off the French south coast, east of Marseille. In the distance I saw something in the…
I sailed across the pacific with one hand
Having reached Bora Bora, I was about to set off on the next leg of my circumnavigation, covering the 1,850 miles to Fiji on my own. There followed a series…
A disastrous trip saw this sailor shipwrecked for the second time on the same islands… 50 years later
During the afternoon of Christmas Eve 2019, I was steering a tubby old steel ketch called Cristina on a delivery passage slowly westward along the south coast of Isla Las…
‘Strange sticky fuel gummed up my engine’
Having a breakdown at sea, and especially in the Bristol Channel, would be extremely scary, with very strong tides, navigational hazards and shipping movements, but we were suddenly confronted with…
‘An out-of-control 40ft motor cruiser reversed at speed into our stern’
Following an already eventful summer cruise to Brittany, our return Channel crossing suddenly became a lot more challenging. We’ve been sailing our 34ft yacht, Hummingbird for 8 years. We generally…
Orca attacks: ‘The orcas shook the boat like a toy’
Departing Nazaré, Portugal at around 0900, we headed south. The day started with no wind and a sizeable swell. The flogging of the sails was incessant but we – my…