TIN BOAT GETS A HEART
Lee Price’s conversion to sailing was brutal. It was the summer of 1993, and the then 17-year-old student was waterskiing with his brother, John, when the engine of their 12ft speedboat broke down in Christchurch Bay. As they drifted helplessly past a navigation buoy, Lee – painter in one hand – made a desperate dive to grab it, but the boat swept past, leaving Lee hanging from the buoy and John drifting out to sea.
John was picked up by a passing yacht off the Needles and raised the alarm. The Coastguard helicopter airlifted an unconscious Lee from the Christchurch inshore lifeboat to Poole hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia.
“It was the last time I relied on an outboard,” says Lee
