kinds of things, says all kind of things, leans nonchalantly on
the hatch as the boat explodes of at 10 knots...if you do it
well, then people feel comfortable and react well.”
The decision to base the charter business on an early
1800s pilot cutter design, which was built in 2008/9 by
Luke Powell of Working Sail in Cornwall, is one Beck has
never regretted. “Guests will often have an epiphany
moment on day two, when they realise we’re out in
conditions that would be quite tasty for a GRP sloop, but
they’re standing there holding a cup of tea. I say: ‘We’ve
spoilt you now! There’s no going back!’ And it’s true. These
boats are amazing. Those people will go on and sail on
Greyhound, Provident, Agnes and other traditional boats.
The younger ones will do the Atlantic circuit.”
Beck and his then-girlfriend Melisa
Collett were persuaded to follow their
sailing dream after the experience of
losing a friend in the 7/7 London
bombings, and the knowledge that as
City commuters only coincidence meant
they had avoided being killed
themselves. Today Beck does a talk to
yacht clubs on how others can change
their lives.
“What held us back were the same
fears that everyone has,” he says.
“People think they need to have the
whole plan in place before they can
make the fi rst step. There are always a
million reasons why the time is not right.
I was a project manager – I know that
the project plan is the description of the
one way the project will not happen!”
Beck and Melisa’s get-out-of-jail-free
card was that either could return to
short-term corporate consultancy if funds ran low. When that’s
exactly what happened after season one, Melisa went ashore
for a nine-month contract. But from there on in, Amelie Rose
as a business has been on a rising curve.
Despite his environmental plans, Beck also has the boat
and business on the market. “This will be our 10th season and
it’s time for something new,” he says.
“The business is going gangbusters – it’s just waiting for
someone to pick it up and carry on. Last year we did a 95-day
season and were 94 per cent utilised, so only six per cent
of the berths for that period were empty. We ended up £10k
over budget – we made more money that we expected.”
He says: “The point of the exercise was never to become
rich. It was to become rich in spirit and fair in wallet!”
Whatever the next few months bring, Beck will be at the
Pilot Cutter World Championships, at St Mawes, Cornwall, in
May. “It’s like an annual family reunion. There’s nothing nicer
than racing against your own kin. It’s what regattas should be
like – getting together and having a good chin-wag.
“If Amelie Rose sold tomorrow, I have no intention of
swallowing the anchor yet. I have a few sea miles left in me. I’ll
be at St Mawes. Somebody’ll give me a ride.
“They might even let me drive.”pilotcutteramelierose.comT
he idea was to become rich in spirit, says Nick Beck
with a laugh, looking back on his decision 10 years
ago to leave a lucrative City of London career to
start a pilot cutter charter business. Sitting back in
Amelie Rose’s toasty cabin, surrounded by nautical literature,
a Playstation and a pot of hot cof ee, his long hair swept
back in a bandana to reveal a hoop earring and with his new
crew, a mongrel puppy, at his feet, Beck looks like a man
whose spirit is doing just fi ne.
Over the past decade, Beck and Amelie Rose have
covered more than 15,000 miles and welcomed around 1,000
charter guests. Many of those are now friends. Repeat
business and personal recommendations are such that Beck’s
entire marketing spend last year came to £750. Perhaps
unconsciously, through his charisma,
through appearances at boat shows
dressed as a pirate, through his work on
the Hungry Sailors television series,
Beck has created a personal brand,
and people like it.
Now he wants to use that for
something else. Amelie Rose was built
with an environmentally friendly ethos,
using as small a carbon footprint as
possible, and 2018 will see Beck try to
take that a step further, using the boat as
an ambassador for the fi ght against
marine plastics pollution.
Beck, however, is not your average
holier-than-thou eco-warrior. “I make my
living from the sea – it doesn’t make
sense to f*** it up!” he says in his
agreeably unabashed manner. “Nobody
wants to be taken out to sea if it’s
covered in fl oating bits of plastic.”
Beck has found ready allies among environmental groups
and meanwhile has sought corporate partners to back the
venture. “Conversations are ongoing,” he says. “We just
put the idea out on social media and the reaction has
been very positive.”
Amelie Rose fi ts the bill for such a role, being of wooden
construction, rather than plastic, and Beck himself will be a
powerful emissary for a cause that requires the ability to
communicate ef ectively with a boardroom one day and a
crew of young novice sailors the next.
He found that his previous corporate life, as a high-level
project manager in London, prepared him well for handling
the ups and downs of the charter business’ early days. Since
then he’s had a decade of the owner/skipper’s life and the
unusual skillset it breeds – unblocking the heads, building the
boat’s website, cooking dinner for eight in a rolling galley,
acting as social secretary for crew members who don’t know
each other (“two bottles of wine over dinner”) or keeping cool
while telling a crew of novices how to man a pilot cutter in a
Force 8 of Guernsey.
“You’re jack of all trades and master of none!” he says of his
position in life. “The ‘command of deck’ stuf is the most
commonly missing part of a skipper’s bag of skills. It’s the
hardest thing to teach. Sometimes you have to develop a
persona, which you wear like a mask. That persona does all“Nobody wants
to be taken
out to sea if
it’s covered in
fl oating bits
of plastic”