I guess it all started with Larry.

As a child, for many years, my parents had a static caravan on Wardens Springs caravan park on the Isle Of Sheppey where I have fond childhood memories of spending many weekends and school holidays. Larry also had a caravan on the park and a small pail blue speed boat. Often he would take my brother and I out off Leysdown beach. I recall we blasted around for a bit, but mostly we fished. From then on I was hooked. I have always loved being near or on the water and remember when growing up even spending many days simply going back and forward over the River Thames on the Woolwich ferry.

When I was about 20 I met Nick {A driving instructor) at a mutual friends wedding. He had just brought a brand new blue Phantom 21 speed boat, inviting me out with an offer to try water skiing. I couldn’t wait and soon I was out with Nick most weekends learning to water ski. I loved it! A few years later I brought my own speed boat a red 18 foot Fletcher Arrowhawk with a 140hp engine and soon after fitted it with a Yamaha 200 Pro V engine. I spent the next 15 years or so water skiing when ever I could at the Kent Boat and Ski club in Rochester (KBSC). I still occasionally water ski on my friend Justin’s boat at the KBSC. It seemed like I was out out boating every weekend I could get away with and to be honest, any day I could after work.

As with many speedboat owners, as you get older you either stop altogether, move on to motor cruisers or buy a sailboat. For me it was sailing, after I saw a Clipper Round The World (RTW) Race advert on the escalators on the London Underground for novice sailors to sail around the world on 70 foot race boats. I immediately signed up and although I had sailed on the River Medway and in Spain, my first real offshore sailing experience was to sail 5500nm across the Southern Ocean from Cape Town South Africa to Freemantle Australia, let me tell you, it was both physically and mentally tough, in fact the toughest thing I have ever done and I soon learned it is not for the faint hearted. Soon after, I became a regular crew member on the very successful charter race boat Scarlet Oyster racing in the RORC series (Royal Ocean Racing Club) in the UK and Caribbean. From time to time and when time permits I still race on Scarlett Oyster, whose skipper (Ross Appleby) and some of the crew have become good friends. I also crewed for a bit, racing in the 3/4 tonner class, (That’s not its weight, but its racing class) around preset courses in Ramsgate.

I retired in 2021 and brought a Hallberg Rassy 412 sailboat and since undertaking the Clipper RTW Race, I have trained and obtained RYA Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper and Yacht Master together with other qualifications such as First Aid at Sea, Sea Survival, VHF radio licence, Diesel Engine course, Raymarine Plotter and Radar operators certificate and alike. I have completed about 40000nm miles both on power and sailing craft.

I mostly solo sail (sometimes called short handed) my boat “Luce Di Mare” (pronounced Lushay dee MarE which is Italian for “Light of the sea”). I am her second owner and she is a solid fast category A ocean blue water cruiser and will pretty much go anywhere in the world. She has two double cabins (bedrooms), a well fitted out galley (kitchen), two heads (toilets with showers), a fully equipped navigation desk, a large saloon (lounge and dining area) with two sofas that covert to sea births (beds with lee clothes to stop you falling out). (It’s difficult and almost impossible and sometimes quite dangerous to sleep in a normal bed when sailing at sea, as you can be thrown about all over the place) and a large outside cockpit with dining table. She is well specified and well equipped and has almost everything you need to sail single handed at the helm, where you can also reach the four electric winches that control various sail adjustments and alike. I have recently maintained, modernised and updated Luce (Lushay) with all that is needed to safely make ocean passages. Her previous owner having already sailed her across the Atlantic to Antigua.

I have met many people who have become good and some life long friends whilst water skiing and now sailing. Many have their own boats here in the UK and abroad, where I have joined them racing, delivering and cruising in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, The Caribbean and in Australia where Nick, (the previous owner of Luce Di Mare) is currently sailing around the world over a 3 year period on Stormbird, his Hallberg Rassy 62. He has a similar website to this and with his blessing I was inspired and allowed to borrow some of his ideas!

My ambition is to sail the coastal waters of Europe including the Atlantic French, Portuguese and Spanish coast. Then on through the Strait of Gibraltar (This is just under 8nm wide and separates Europe from Africa) into the Mediterranean Sea, including sailing its Balearic Islands, together with the Tyrrhenian, Ionian sea and the Italian and Croatian Adriatic sea, with no real time plan. I expect to be doing this for the next few years. I may even give the Mediterranean African coast a try when I eventually bring Luce (Lushay) back to the UK in years to come. Frustratingly though, since Brexit, the Schengen Treaty stops me spending more than 90 days in any 180 days in any European Union country.

From time to time, I plan for my family and friends to join me as often as they can. I love bay and Island hopping, anchoring in the many stunning bays and islands wherever it is I am. Then launching and jumping into the dinghy and motoring onto a beach to explore and or for drinks and dinner. I will regularly travel home leaving Luce (Lushay) safely in a local marina when doing so.

I want and hope this website will record my experiences, acting not only as my own contemporaneous diary, but also so my family, friends and anyone else who may be interested can follow me as I casually sail wherever the wind takes me.