Gipsy Moth IV has not been a lucky boat. When launched in the Solent back in 1966, Francis Chichester was horrified at how tender she was, but with Alec Rose soon to set sail again in his own boat, Lively Lady, there was no time for modifications. He found her a pig to sail and all those who have sailed in her since have marvelled that an ailing pensioner could get her around the world on his own.

She was almost wrecked on a reef in Rangiroa and, though both admit they were to blame, the skipper and mate had their careers blemished more severely than if they had put a boat ashore which was not so newsworthy.

And even for me she was the challenge I was denied. I had been promised the Atlantic crossing, but the demands of the office prevented this and James Jermain took my place. Next I was set to join her for the Panama – Galapagos trip, but, again, flying times, and turn around times conspired against this. Next up was a leg in the South Pacific, but the stranding put paid to this and also the chance to sail her from Auckland to Sydney as she was shipped there instead.

Even now as she wends her weary way home, the destinations in which I was supposed to have joined her have shrunk from Gibraltar, to La Coruna, to Brest, to Falmouth. In the end Gib was too far between production weeks at the office and the others she has failed to put into for various reasons of deadline time and weather.

Though I was fortunate to make the outward passage from Gibraltar to Tenerife, and to have transitted the Suez Canal aboard her, for me , at least Gipsy Moth IV’s second circumnavigation, has been a voyeuristic one…like reading Chichester’s account of the first round-the-world trip!