Why I sail..
- Tom Brawn
- May 28
- 5 min read
By Tom Brawn
I originally wrote this as a five minute spoken presentation that I had to make to a room full of strangers.
Luckily for me, and probably my audience, I didn’t end up having to make that presentation, but on realising that this is the only non AI generated writing I’ve produced since I was at school, and only then because AI didn’t exist, I thought it at least deserved a final resting place as my first blog post on our new website..
Recently someone asked me about my job and why I work as a Skipper.
Because I’ve been doing it for a while now, and it’s just sort of what I do, I didn’t really have anything particularly profound or considered to tell them.
Afterwards though, after actually thinking about it consciously for a minute or two, I realised that I did have some pretty good reasons for doing what I do and that, far from it being the reason that I give to people who occasionally ask me, which is usually something along the lines of me hating my old desk job and randomly doing the first thing someone suggested to me as an alternative (which there is some truth to) Nowadays it’s quite the opposite - for me it’s all about agency..
In a lot of ways I think that sailing on a Yacht is a sort of microcosm of a life with agency.
If you’ll indulge me a brief, but hopefully relevant digression, here’s a story for you..
Years ago, when I used to care who the first person to climb X mountain, or who the first sailor to navigate a given ocean unaided, or blindfolded or something equally impressive was, I remember watching a documentary about the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
It was the world’s first non stop, solo and unassisted round the world yacht race, and entrants were to depart from England at any time between the 1st of June and the 31st October 1968.
You’ve probably heard of it - there’s a few crazy stories that came out of it, such as the tragic tale of Donald Crowhurst, who on leaving Teignmouth was immediately beset by a variety of engineering issues that would render an attempt to navigate the southern ocean akin to suicide.
Deciding instead to go radio silent, falsify his ship’s logs, and bob around in the southern Atlantic until he could fall in with the returning participants and perhaps finish last, so as to avoid the scrutiny that those who came in first, or second place would no doubt receive, he appears to have gone mad.
When his vessel, the “Teignmouth Electron” was eventually found, Donald unfortunately was not, and his logbook tells us a tragic story of guilt, shame and madness.
Alas, of the nine sailors who originally set out, only one was to finish, and therefore win the race - an English sailor called Robin Knox-Johnston.
As an Englishman myself, you might expect me to talk more about Mr Knox-Johnston - but no! the person I find most interesting in this story is a man called Bernard Moitessier..
Bernard was of course a French sailor who, by the latter part of the race, had the fastest time, and was widely assumed to be the eventual winner.
He did something completely unexpected however, when he eventually rounded the cape of good hope - instead of heading up north, along the west coast of Africa and back towards England, he basically just said “fuck it” and kept heading west - back towards Cape Horn and the southern ocean for another go.
In a detail that I love, he even managed to fire a handwritten note via slingshot to a passing ship, to get the message to his Sunday Times correspondent, which read: “Because I am happy at sea and perhaps to save my soul” - presumably this was in answer to the question of “where the hell are you going!?” On millions of peoples minds.
He later told his account of the race in his memoir, aptly named “The Long Way” which according to Wikipedia is regarded as a “classic of sailing and adventuring literature” in case any of you are interested.
I actually haven’t read it yet, and I must confess that I haven’t even thought much about this story for a while now, until it recently popped back into my head again, as it sometimes does.
When I first saw the documentary, I couldn’t understand how anyone could be so insane as to abandon a race when victory was seemingly within grasp, and in so doing forfeiting any chance of attaining money, fame or what I thought was most important at the time - being the first person to do something dangerous and cool.
Now I look at the story very differently - I won’t put words in his mouth, but presumably Bernard experienced in an extremely concentrated form, what we've all experienced when Sailing - that feeling of immediacy, where our actions or lack thereof have a direct impact on whether or not our little islands of safety remain that way, and decided that it was worth more to him than returning to a life of comfort and flattery.
“it’s about the journey, not the destination” is an often overused and annoying phrase, but like so many similar modernisms - “YOLO” is a good example, there is definitely some wisdom hidden within.
In fact, it doesn’t seem to have been about the destination at all for Bernard.
He did continue to sail west, and after rounding Cape Horn for a second time, his journey finally ended on the 21st June 1969 in Tahiti, after he decided that he and his Yacht “Joshua” had had enough.
Although it’s not really the point, he did also in the process set the world record at the time, for the longest non stop passage on a Yacht, at over 37 and a half thousand nautical miles in 10 months.
I think why I like this story so much, or at least why it’s stuck with me over the years is because it holds a mirror up to how much life at sea has changed my perspective over the decade or so since I quit my desk job and trained to be a Skipper.
Shortly after getting qualified in 2015, I had a brief stint working on Superyachts, as many newly qualified Yachtmasters do.
However, the experience of spending months using a toothbrush to clean rust off of guard rails seems to have precipitated my very own “Moitessier moment” and helped me realise why I’d started sailing in the first place.
I think that one of the grossest terms in the English language is “Human Resources” but it describes well the feeling I always start to get when I spend too long in the real world, or handing towels to ungrateful Billionaires - like a replaceable cog.
Nowadays I am happiest when I’m enjoying the little moments, like a sunrise sail with good coffee, a nice cold land beer at sunset with good company, or an amazing review from my guests.
It’s worth it just for the unique satisfaction I get when I know I’ve done my job well. I imagine it’s kind of like what a Chef must feel when they see someone enjoying their food.
Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for reading, and If you did make it this far, then I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did.
I’m no poet, so I’ll end simply with a quote that speaks to me, and that I have always found to be true in my life:
“When a great adventure is launched with a powerful thrust, fatigue in the muscles and doubts in the mind are swept away by a fullness that moves life along like a breath from the depths of the soul”
- Bernard Moitessier, 1925-1994
Comments