Clipper Round The World - 2017

In 2016 I found an old piece of paper with some Big Hairy Goals to achieve before 2020. I remembered writing them after the birth of my Son Huxley. The funny thing was that I had never made a list before and had been just blundering along in life, and sadly it was 6 years later that I found it untouched.

So what was on the top of that list

#1 Sail around the world!

So I began searching social media, watching videos on YouTube, and thinking about what I might do to achieve this. That is when Clipper Round the World began filling my feed, very clever targeted advertising…

A friend Ben Gough had done a similar race in the 90’s called the BT Global Challenge and so a quick call confirmed it would likely get my experience and confidence up in one hit.

Clipper is not just for full circumnavigations, and with a young family there was only so much time I could be away. I decided I wanted to be on the boat for legs 1, 2, & 3.

Leg 1. Liverpool to Punta Del Esta. Why, because due to training requirements I had to have a week with my team and skipper sailing out of Portsmouth just prior to the race start so would be in Europe. And also because I wanted to be there for the foundation of the team culture.

Leg 2. Punta Del Esta to Cape Town. Because I was in Uruguay so why not keep going, and to arrive into Cape Town under Table Mountain by sea would be amazing.

Leg 3. Cape Town to Fremantle. My logic was that my English ancestors had sailed from England to New Zealand to start a new life, so I would sail as close to New Zealand as possible for my new life.

That is what I achieved. I started as a novice sailor that had never been offshore, and ended up on my last leg as a watch leader of a 70 ocean racing boat. We sailed into Fremantle in 3rd position, welcomed home by my amazing family on the dock.