CRUISE THE WORLD …WITHOUT A BOAT
‘You can get so lucky and find people who become lifelong friends’
As a boy, Darroch Tait always had his head in a book. He was fascinated by adventures and the discovery of new lands. In his early 30s he decided to quit his job as a teacher, buy a boat with his best friend and go sailing for a few years. He set off in his 35ft Trident Warrior Hitrapia in 2013 and cruised the Med, before Hitrapia dragged her anchor one night and was wrecked near Sagres.
Tait didn’t want to abandon his plan. So he decided to walk the dock and find a skipper who would take him on as crew. It led to him being crew for a transatlantic crossing and then sailing round the world in 2016. Today, over two years of sailing and three different yachts later, he has completed the circumnavigation, and written three books about his travels.
It has given him adventures to rival the most vivid of those childhood books. “Active volcanoes, catching a 100kg marlin, surfing monster waves, freediving with whale sharks, sailing through the midst of the humpback migration off the east coast of Brazil… these are just a few of the many highlights,” he says.
JOINING THE VILLAGE
When Karen Slater lost her job with the Fire Service after 21 years she decided to go sailing. She had no background in yachting and limited knowledge, but she spent two seasons crewing for a charter
