The Spirit of Weymouth on the return home

The last time we were with Steve, he was on his way to finishing a very credible ninth in the Plymouth to Boston Artemis Transat, orchestrating his way out of a severe electrical storm but thankfully not becoming the conductor! Well, that was the last adventure he had before sailing into Boston harbour to an unexpected hero’s welcome, but let’s hear it from the man himself,

“My arrival in Boston was really quite a memorable affair. I was met by a RIB about half a mile before the finish line. The occupants were shouting and cheering and our boat was lit up by spotlight so that photographs could be taken. As we came alongside it was after midnight, and I was amazed to see so many people on the dock - I had felt sure that there would be nobody there at that time of night other than the customs men, but I was very wrong. Sam Davies, Dee(Caffari) and their shore crews, and seemingly most of the Offshore Challenges people were there, so there was quite a crowd and I was really rather overwhelmed and also I was very touched that they had made such an effort on my behalf.”

Unlike most races which go around in some sort of circle the ‘Transat’ is a one way sprint across the Atlantic and that, as Shakespeare would say, is the rub, once you get there you have to turn around and come back again! The trip back however is not under race conditions, therefore the pressure is off and you can take a crew member along to help with the sails and to cook those tasty pasta dishes we have heard so much about. Nevertheless it is still a full blown Atlantic crossing and as any mountaineer will tell you it’s when you are coming down the hill, tired, and without the focus of the summit, that you are most vulnerable.

For the trip back Steve was accompanied by an old sailing buddy Sam Adams and unfortunately for our intrepid duo the weather had not vented all its anger on the inbound trip. Steve and Sam had to endure more storms with the wind whipping up to over 50 knots. Steve gives a flavour of the life on-board during such conditions;

“Whilst it blew we lay in our respective bunks like a pair of book ends, both of us thinking "surely this can't go on for much longer", but that's the joy of going with the weather systems, they take forever to come over you. Neither of us said very much, it was fairly noisy. I thought perhaps we should have had a game of shouted "I-spy" to break the silence between us, when Sam announced he could see some blue sky through his bedroom window, and within a couple of hours there had been a big wind shift of around 90 degrees, the wind had dropped to 30 knots, and we unrolled the solent headsail, shook out the third reef and started for home in earnest, with our boat speed over 20 knots hour after hour.”

Sound fun! Plenty of time for a snack then Steve. “We fortified ourselves with the biggest vat of tortellini in the world, swimming in olive oil with grated cheese on the top and a yoghurt to finish”.

But it was not all beating the weather, party games and fine dining during the trip. Steve and Sam were to witness the more magical side of what the mid-Atlantic has to offer. Surreal, yet majestic scenes that mere land lubbers like us can’t even begin to imagine. Steve describes one such event;

“We both saw a flock of three flying fish swoop across the front of the boat. It was incredible, I have never seen them before, they really do fly, or glide to be more accurate. It is really stunning what nature comes up, we all know they exist, but until you see it with your own eyes its difficult to believe. Unfortunately there were some small ones dead on the deck this morning, one an inch long, another a bit longer, so that was quite sad. The artist Didier Becet who painted them together with the penguins and gulls on the inside of the ceiling on our boat had obviously seen them too – and although he has caricatured them, he has captured their slightly surprised looking eyes and intense but comical expression to a tee. I bet you didn't know fish had expressions........they do though.”

The adventures didn’t end there either the crew had to endure damage to the hull and, after a leak, ‘Soup a la diesel’ which according to Steve is not one of Ainsley Harriet’s better recipes, albeit unintentional! Finally they arrived back on the 17th of June. For Steve it was a total of 49 days away from home and 37 days away from his wife Kim and family of which 32 days were at sea – so I guess if it’s the same for Steve as it is for the rest of us, there were lawns to mow and a bit of DIY waiting for him on his return home.