Being poked in the cheek and asked ‘Is this annoying? Is this annoying? Is this annoying?’ by my bored 11-year-old daughter Isla was indeed annoying. But what made it even more irritating was the fact that, as she did so, I was watching Sobek – our Colvic 34 which happened to be sitting on a buoy in the midst of Storm Betty – edge ever closer to the geo-fence pictured on the screen inches from my aghast face.

Having dealt with one issue by informing Isla at considerable volume that, yes, it was rather annoying, I then used all of my vast (10 months’) sailing experience to deal with the other.

By now the wind was gusting Force 9, and according to the screen we were shortly to end up on a nearby reef here in the Scillies, whereupon Sobek would begin to vigorously disassemble herself.

So I did what I normally do in situations of sailing-related peril – I texted Justin, Sobek’s previous owner who was nearby in his own vessel, Thistledown. A man of vast experience and glacial calm, he informed me in clipped tones that the wind had simply veered a tad, I’d set the geo-fence too close to the mooring, and the same thing had just happened to him.

‘Reset it, nothing to worry about, and enjoy the evening,’ was his curt response. He didn’t sound resigned exactly, but if either of us had known how to put a ‘sigh’ emoji on the message (we’re both of a certain age, and indeed a grammatically correct inclination) then we would have done so. Fair enough, I’d been harassing him ever since I’d bought the boat, to the point that he was now accompanying me on this – the Generation Sea Change project – just to keep a close eye on proceedings.

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Blowing the budget for sailing to the Scillies

I had purchased Sobek a year previously. Having decided to venture into the world of sailing, I set a very strict price limit of £27,000 as that’s what we could just about rustle together without breaking the bank.

The subsequent conversation with my wife, Tam, in which I informed her that I had not only found the vessel of my dreams, but that I had actually shaken hands on the £40K or so required to buy it was not met with a rueful shake of the head and a ‘It’s precisely that sort of financial spontaneity that attracted me to you
in the first place, you loveable rogue,’ comment.

Instead there was a short period of silence, and I thought some rather unnecessary and passive-aggressive clattering of pans that evening as we all sat down to dinner. But she was a beautiful boat, with a touch of elegance and grandeur but also a bit of a pot belly akin to a duchess gone to seed. Immaculately fitted out by two artisan craftsmen, then equipped for a round-the-world voyage that never happened, she was as perfect a family vessel as one could imagine.

One small point was that she didn’t like going astern very much, or rather she’d go astern, but make a point of studiously ignoring my increasingly frantic attempts to direct her as she did so. Going forward she handled like the fine ketch she was; going backwards she handled like the unholy union of a bouncy castle that had mated with a skip.

Justin very quickly spotted that I know next to nothing, and set about teaching me to sail. We’re both former Royal Marines, so there was a certain understanding from the get-go.

‘I’m not going to cut corners just because we’re mates,’ he noted. ‘I am going to get you sailing properly. If you can handle that, we’re good to go.’It all sounded fine to me. I nodded my consent.

‘Oh, and one last thing. When I’m watching, thinking, or taking something in, I have the unfortunate characteristic that my resting expression – the screen saver mode of my face, if you will – looks disapproving and, some have said, furious. But it’s just the way I look – just thought I’d warn you.’

Justin turned out to be patient, calm, measured, and gave me just enough leeway to test myself. He was perfectly correct about the facial expression, which rattled me to such a degree when we started sailing together that I turned into a blithering idiot, but once I’d figured out that he was genuinely just taking it all in, and he figured out that I wasn’t a total imbecile, we cracked on with the job in hand.

Turning the environmental tide

This job happened to be preparing me to skipper Sobek along the south coast of Devon and Cornwall in a single summer, all the way to the Scillies and back. I live in Dartmouth, so appreciate that this is, for many, a laughably short sojourn, a decent long weekend away. But for me, with the family on board, it was Cape Horn to starboard with Tristan de Cunha thrown in en route.

The rationale for the trip was deeply personal. With two young kids – Isla and Molly – growing up on the bucolic south coast, it had slowly dawned on me that all the messaging they were receiving about the sea was negative.

If the white noise of the media is that we are on an oceanic arc of self destruction, and that there is nothing we can do about it, then what does that tell the next generation? It is essentially a message to abandon hope, as the ultimate destruction of the ocean is now destiny, beyond the ken of us mere mortals to fix.

I had worked with enough brilliant scientists, ocean advocates and community groups along the south coast to know that this is simply not true. So Generation
Sea Change was born – a project to celebrate the great work being done by good people to turn the environmental tide. I was going to glide, or perhaps waddle, along the entire route in Sobek with the family in tow, personally visiting and filming as many of these initiatives as possible.

Steep learning curve

Two things stood in my way. The first was that sailing turned out to be surprisingly hard – not a fashionable point of view I know, but certainly going from no knowledge at all to skippering your own vessel in six short months is hard. Particularly when you’re 56 years old, and discover that every new fact you’re required to absorb pushes an old fact out of your somewhat addled mental hard drive.

The second factor was that when the family were on board, I felt a huge weight of responsibility to keep them safe. They hadn’t, after all, signed up for this, and should I catastrophically mess up it’s them who would have paid the price.

This sense of guilt was enhanced by Luna, our golden retriever, who had recently won ‘Dog with the most appealing eyes’ at the Kingsbridge agricultural show. Whenever there was a slightly stressful situation, to have those twin limpid pools peering up at me adoringly from under curved lashes was, quite frankly, extremely discombobulating. I would have preferred it if she’d bitten my shin.

But this was important work. In the timeless rhythms of the ocean – the daily tidal cycles, the changing of the seasons, and the passing of the years – this latest period of flux and profound change is the greatest yet. And so we must move with it, adapt and evolve as we always have, and mobilise to help as best we can.

The next few months were a whirlwind of new terms, uncomfortable sensations, and revelations. But gradually – oh so gradually – it all began to make sense. After one particularly calamitous coming alongside, Justin observed, ‘At least you know how much you don’t know,’ damning me with faint praise, but also showing Yoda levels of perception.

My mantra became ‘seek improvement, not perfection’ – as good a strap line as any for someone learning the ropes, lines and halyards. Change was incremental, but it was change nonetheless.

Free spirits

As an expression it also worked rather well when the family were on board, as accepting a certain level of carnage and anarchy was a given. Nature abhors a vacuum, and children, particularly my children, abhor order and systems.

Giving them leeway to explore and experiment (within limits of course) meant that they felt at home on board, which seemed to me a key element of harmonious sailing. ‘Home’ in this case was the forepeak, where their two bed spaces quickly began to mirror a dirty protest in a Victorian prison cell. But this was their safe place, where they would burrow in like two ticks, peering at me with beady eyes as I periodically pushed the door ajar.

In July we were on our way, setting sail from Dartmouth amid embarrassing fanfare, with several friends waving us off from the quay. We duly skulked the 37 miles to Plymouth, and were storm-bound for 10 days. This is a terrific term for essentially loafing in Mayflower Marina as it was a tad windy and lumpy, but eventually shame and schedule forced us out, and we progressed to Falmouth, Newlyn, then the Scillies.

Unbeknownst to us, at the same moment Storm Betty was gathering her grey skirts to make a run across the Atlantic, to duly batter us on arrival in St Mary’s. But we survived, Sobek kept us safe, my marriage remained intact, and we returned over the next month along the same route.

Lessons learned

The things we discovered during this, our first sailing sojourn, were a revelation. There is a conservation insurgency springing up amongst ordinary folk along our coastline, a revolution in communities who have simply had enough of official inertia. When this is combined with brilliant young entrepreneurs coming up with inventions, surfers coming up with filtration systems, and an energised cohort of young people on the march, the realisation is actually that we might, just might, be able to turn the tide.

But that is for another article at another time. Returning to Dartmouth, tying up alongside at the end of that seminal summer, I had a moment to reflect on the journey – both physical and metaphorical – from total rookie to becoming a freshly minted master of my own vessel.

For me, it seemed to boil down to a few simple things, which I have listed below. Use these lessons as you will – words of wisdom from a mediocre skipper, an average sailor of limited experience, who bumbled along the craggy south coast and stared down the spiralling horror of Betty (that is to say, we explored Devon and Cornwall at 2 knots, and tied up to a mooring in the Scillies with nine lines, then hunkered down and texted Justin).

Get out of the damn way

As a new skipper, you are of course acquainted with the rules of the road and collision avoidance. Acquainted, but not quite on intimate terms. Do it early, do it assertively, and sail on to enjoy your day.

Just ask

Glancing at my ‘recent calls’ on my phone last year, it became apparent that I’d called Justin more often than my best friend, wife and mum combined. The poor bloke was on speed dial, but he seemed entirely happy to pass on his wisdom. I think people like being approached for advice, and as a new skipper there are endless questions.

Ignorance and jargon

You know nothing. And there’s nothing that exposes how much nothing you know more than jargon. There’s a certain type of person who rejoices in the exclusivity of sailing terms and uses them as weapons of assault on newbies like me to keep us in our place. These people are invariably buffoons, and in attempting to expose your ignorance all they do is reveal their own. They should be ignored.

Go for it

There’s a certain magnificent, noble, hopeless courage in being a new skipper. You’re out there, you kind of have an idea of what you’re doing, but if the wheels properly come off you’ll be in a spot of bother / brutally exposed / apocalyptically doomed. But you’re out there anyway, and that requires a certain Corinthian mindset.

Take it slowly

This is probably the main tip for me as a new skipper. When berthing, slow down, take your time, and never approach anything at a greater speed than you’d like to collide with it.

Electronics

It goes without saying that mariners of old would have given anything to have the dazzling array of electronic aids we have. So as a new skipper it’s vital to take time to understand what the kit you have on board can do for you. Electronics are not a substitute for good seamanship, but learning exactly how to use them is certainly part of the process.

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