At the age of 24, James’ rise to fame has been meteoric. He admits as much himself as he tells how a speculative email to offshore legend, Dee Caffari MBE, ahead of an RYA training weekend in early 2020, paved the way for the two to become sailing partners.
“It was an open training weekend, and I had heard that Dee was going to be there. So I sent her an email to introduce myself, and said I would like the chance to learn from her. She agreed to give it a go. I remember when she replied, I took a photo of the email and sent it to my friends, thinking, ‘this is going to be the coolest thing ever!’
“At the time, neither of us thought it was going to be a long term project; it was just a few weekends of sailing. But we both ended up having a really good time and found that our skill sets and personalities were similar but also complementary. We found we had this great dynamic and a very strong mutual trust.
“It’s amazing to have Dee’s experience, not only from ocean racing, but also from everything else she has accomplished and all the barriers
