BELOW: Over the
years, Dauntsey’s
students have
sailed more than
200,000 miles
on Jolie Brise
down a large breaking wave touching 15 knots
on the surf, the helm lost control, they gybed, the
mainsail preventer pulled the deck fi tting out and
the boom whipped through the backstay, popping
40ft of topmast off. No one panicked, instructions
were given – the Dauntsey’s students got stuck in.
That mess of rigging took nearly 14 hours to sort out,
after which Jolie Brise continued her race, without
the topmast.
For Toby, in 2009, the topmast was a situational
problem, not a danger. He knows his ship. In
the eight years since, technology has moved on
massively. In 2009, he and mate Adam Seager
worked with the computer screen in layers of cling
fi lm, trying to plot different routes with chinagraph
over the GRIB fi les and weather information sent
to them from Chris Tibbs, giving them differentIt’s an unforgettable
experience for everyone,
but for some it’s
transformational
W
hen Jolie Brise
and the students
of Dauntsey’s
School in
landlocked
Wiltshire go
transatlantic,
the planning
starts very early on, and for good reason.
The tall ship’s long-time skipper Toby Marris
knows only too well how different individual
crossings can be. In 2009, during the last leg
of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge, Jolie Brise
lost her topmast in 55 knots of wind, mid-ocean.
They had broken the topmast before, in the
Mediterranean, but that was in fairly placid waters;
this North Atlantic storm was very different. ComingADVENTURE