Better late than never

I started sailing just 14 years ago, at the age of 56. We had moved to Devon as part of a retirement plan and were surrounded by a stunning coastline and an estuary that was busy with water-sports. I bought a 14ft Wanderer dinghy and took a short 'introduction to dinghy sailing' course in which I remember performing a capsize on request, but quickly managing to clamber over the gunwales to stand on the dagger board and right it without getting fully wet! This fits well with how I now describe myself as a 'fair-weather sailor'! I took a shore-based Yachtmaster qualification course on acquiring a Sadler 26 yacht in 2010, however on the practical side I can say I am pretty much self-taught.

By the time of starting my circumnavigation I had covered well over 10,000 nautical miles, a lot of it single handed, on the south coast from the Solent to the Scillies and across to the Channel Islands and the adjacent coast of France. In 2017, I upgraded to a 1980 built Westerly Fulmar, named Thalmia.

Taking on this challenge was inspired by two other yachtsmen at our club who had done it previously, one of them also mostly singlehanded. My wife came on board with the idea (but not onboard to sail with me as she doesn’t take well