Yachting Monthly – September 2019

A BADGE

OF HONOUR

E

xperience is a hard-won thing.

To have sailed north to the high

Arctic, or short-handed across

the Atlantic to the Azores, and

returned to tell the tale, is a

badge of honour for any sailor.

We may not all aspire to stretch

ourselves and our boats quite

that far, but most of us will have wondered what it

would be like, and if we could do it. I know I have.

So it was with some fascination that I read three

articles in particular this month from others who

have sailed their standard production boats, by no

means specialised expedition yachts, in such

challenging conditions. Brian Black, who has spent

a decade’s worth of summers and more in the

desolate beauty of Greenland’s fjords, shares what

it takes to navigate the ice, the isolation and mental

challenges of the high latitudes. Whether I follow

in his wake or not, there are certainly some

seamanlike ideas I’d like to adopt on my boat (p38).

For those that prefer warmer climes, four sailors

from this year’s Azores and Back race explained how

they got their boats – a Dehler 36 and a Westerly

Ocean 33 among them – ready for 1,000 miles of

open water. Susie Goodall may be a veteran of the

Golden Globe Race, but racing doublehanded gave

her new insights, while this was the second time

offshore for Paralympic sailor Helena Lucas. Their

experiences, including the odd mishap, provide

valuable learning for the rest of us.

It may have been a step up for some of them, but

it’s nothing compared to the plunge into the deep end

taken by Loris Pattinson. The 18-year-old was helping

crew a yacht through the fjords of Chile when the

skipper had to urgently fl y home for a few weeks,

requiring the teenager to deliver the boat several

hundred miles up this challenging coast, solo. A steep

learning curve, but one he rose to admirably, emerging

with a badge of honour only real experience can bestow.

Yachting Monthly Editor

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