Rite of passage

A bit about me before I get started: sailing is in my blood. My great grandfather, Geoffrey Pattinson, was a member of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. He had raced his yachts Fanfare and Uomie in the Sydney Hobart yacht races. His yachts featured on the club walls. His son Peter Pattinson was the founder member of the Welsh Sailing School. But it was my mother, Sasha, who worked for a living on yachts from Australia, Caribbean and the Mediterranean who encouraged me to sail.

I started sailing when I was seven years old, in my local town, Lochcarron, north west Scotland. When I was 11, I sold eggs and put the money toward buying a dinghy of my own.

At 13 I started at Gordonstoun school which brought me my first meaningful contact with the sea on board Ocean Spirit of Moray, the school’s fully manual 80ft Oyster. During the five years I spent at Gordonstoun I sailed around the Outer-Hebrides, from Inverness to Lisbon in the 2016 Tall Ships Race, and the Bristol to Glasgow leg of a round Britain voyage to mark the 80th anniversary of the school. It was a sound preparation for Chile but none of this could really prepare me for what came next.

I left Gordonstoun eight months ago, took my RYA Day Skipper ticket at Commodore Sailing in the