Dave Selby
Multiple circumnavigators include Moitessier, Knox-Johnston... and now Dave Selby
Mad about the boat
Dave Selby is the proud owner of a 5.48m (18ft) Sailfish, which he keeps on a swinging mooring on the picturesque Blackwater estuary in Essex
Circumnavigators are a select bunch, and rarer still are those who’ve notched up three, so it’s with particular excitement I await confirmation of my investiture into the Circumnavigators Club. It should be any day now, post allowing, once my appeal has been upheld.
Like pretty much everyone else I have completed a circumnavigation as part of a crew. That circumnavigation I regard as barely worth mentioning. Of course, you will have come across plenty of people less humble than I who, upon their return from such jaunts, will really make a meal of it as they go on endlessly about the challenges of freeze-dried astronaut food –and then sign up an agent so they can blather to bankers about privations and hardships, of which we had none.
True, opening sachets, if you’re careless with the scissors, can cause a nasty nick, leading to sepsis, amputation and death. The first two scenarios can be worked into passable anecdotes for the after-dinner motivational speaker circuit, though I’ve yet to hear a first-hand account of the third.
The six of us, however, had no such character-building episodes, as instead of sachets we had a superb sandwich selection platter of white, brown, wholemeal and even a gluten-free option. In truth, neither did we have anything in the way of the mountainous seas normally associated with the Roaring Forties-type weather the corporates love to hear about; just temperate, balmy sun all the way and nothing more than the top of a Force 2, which meant we had to row quite a lot. As for dismastings and breakages, they were equally disappointing –we didn’t have any.
Afurther let-down was that we’d chosen the right boat, a Drascombe Lugger with a sliding gunter rig that lowered the air draught so we could slide under the bridges round the back of Canvey Island on the Thames. In all, it took six hours, which I’m pretty certain is a record for a circumnavigation.
For me though, solo circumnavigation, often described as the Everest of sailing,
represents the very peak of human endeavour, and as by then word had got around I had to undertake my other two efforts by myself, and battle not merely with the elements but with the desolation and loneliness that has tipped many a solo sailor over the brink. Both of those solo escapades took me to new heights– literally–which is one of the advantages of
