With the jib sheet in one hand, and spinnaker sheet in the other from the port side, I braced my feet on the starboard gunwale and stood out trapeze style using the sheet as my wire. This alone didn’t provide sufficient leverage to right the boat, so with each passing wave lifting the port side slightly, I bounced my weight to accentuate the effect. It was apparent this was wasn’t sufficient, so I conserved my energy until I saw the wind too added force when the gunwale lifted. The combination of my levered weight bouncing when a large wave arrived, and the sudden strong wind gust, worked, and I walked up the hull as she lifted, and flopped right way up.

The wind began to howl down from the hills, pummelling the sea into frenzied ripples. “George” had his first taste of front line action holding the tiller down while I lunged forward to disarm the rioting mainsail. The jib strained, I pulled her away and we were away. “Sundance” planed, quickly draining out through the bailer whatever water she’d shipped.

It was a little tense but not unpleasant sailing and after a few hours we popped out of the murk to a starlit sky and a building North Easter. We could just lay the Ile Pomegues off Marseille and the 1970’s S&S design began to live up to her reputation as a windward wizard

So we returned to Australia to pack up our lives. The house needed to be rented, a new home had to be found for our beloved dog, immediate family had to be persuaded that what we were doing was not completely crazy, and friends had to be farewelled and encouraged to come and visit.

These days I don’t sail often. I live in London. My career and my group of non-sailing friends take up most of my time. I often pine after cheap Scandi 30ft keel boats on Instagram and imagine a life up a Norwegian fjord, but then I have to rush off to a meeting and a pint of Guinness and my nautical notions fade.  

It cost more money, and took longer to complete, than I could have ever imagined.  That’s a story as old as Job.  At times, I wondered if I would ever escape back to sea.  From Monday to Friday, I’d get up at 5.30 am, row my dory across the river from Dangar Island to Brooklyn, after a quick breakfast, catch the 6.35 am train to work, and get back to my boatshed at 7 pm.   Then I’d have to get up early every Saturday and Sunday, row across the river again, and go to work on Mudshark.

Once, 42 days out of Sydney, while beating painfully to windward off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, en route to Nelson, he somewhat outrageously wrote that he was starting to like ocean sailing.  He’d sailed more than 70,000 miles at that point.

As the world becomes more and more risk adverse, and our weekly screen time reports go up and up, perhaps we can be advocates for stepping outside the commonplace and doing things a little differently.

A beautiful thing is the culture of reciprocity, you go into a relationship with people by exchanging gifts. I also like that you are defined by your kinship and relations, not your job title.

She meets a lanky Australian engineer Graeme, with a yen to sail around the world, and together they buy HOPE a traditional wooden gaff-rigged cutter and grab adventure with both hands.

‘The run from Honolulu was a nightmare. In the last weeks of December I battled constant gales. The turbulent sea threatened to smash my boat to pulp. On two occasions the little boat was wallowing more than half full of water. My arms were so tired from constant bailing, I could not raise them above my shoulders. Once again, I strapped myself to the bunk and prayed. Providence has been kind to me.

Back in 1952, when Ben started planning this voyage, the Royal Navy hadn’t really got into ‛adventure training’ (I imagine that most of the older officers had experienced more than enough adventure, in the previous decade), so it was a lucky chance for Ben, that the Lords of the Admiralty decided that he should be posted to New Zealand (which also happened to be the country of his birth).

From its earliest days, the Ocean Cruising Club has celebrated those who dared to brave the ocean in small boats, and many of its early members are now legend.

Two feet of her bow was missing; the cabin house had mostly disappeared as she ground her way upside down across the outer reefs that protect Panawina and the other islands of the archipelago; all but one of her oars were gone; and her valuable equipment had been shared among the islanders. Interestingly, when her wrecked cabin disgorged its load of water she righted herself and remained so until she was found.

The trio of rafts travelled 14,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean from Ecuador to eventually and accidentally arrive at Ballina on Australia's east coast.

Regular readers may have noticed that here at SWS our interest in Wharram Catamarans has morphed into a minor obsession over the last year or so. Well how could we not sit up and notice this surfing adventure film released today in the UK.

“What matters is action. Not to think about writing, but to write. Not to think about sailing, but to sail. Not to think about loving, but to love.”

As the day wore on the breakers grew closer. By early afternoon I had rounded the northeastern tip of the island and begun to make my way along the northern side. By about 1400hrs the first pang of fear came in. I was rowing along, just outside the reef, the land was oh so close, yet completely inaccessible.

Tom and his immediate family are not much into the modern fashion for instantaneous communication. They’d much rather mull over a suitable answer or wait for the best time to send it than have a Pavlovian reaction to incoming mail.

The thought of rowing nonstop back to Australia looks very attractive at the moment, in which case, I can expect to make landfall in Australia in about 120 days, perhaps a little less. But, of course, this is all conjecture.