Page 31 - Yachter Spring 2023

Trans-Atlantic on a Swan 90
bit more about the world was all I craved.
I loved Australia. It is, as I’m sure many of you know, an incredible place. As I travelled
from city to city and beach to beach running out of money all the time, I ended up in Cairns and found an advertisement to work as a deckhand on a boat running trips out to the Barrier Reef. I had no idea what a deckhand was but if someone was willing to pay me to go on the trip I wanted to go on but couldn’t afford, in exchange for some work then that sounded like a fair deal. I fell in love with working on a boat within about a day.That was over sixteen years ago now, I have never wanted to do anything else.
Having found my purpose in Australia,
I returned home and moved to Falmouth where I went through the RYA system and gained myYachtmaster with two incredible guys, Andy and Jay. Sadly I don’t believe they are running the sailing school now.Two truer sailors I have rarely met.Yachtmaster
in hand, I was offered the chance for a trans-Atlantic delivery and spent the next few years doing every paid delivery and
race I could find. I was twenty-two at this point and realising it was time, if I wanted to make a career at sea, to do more if I could.
I applied and gained a scholarship to attend
Antarctic
RACING REPORTS 31