Sir Robin’s cruising wisdom
The sailing legend tells Laura Hodgetts how to make the most of time on the water
Being responsible for introducing more than 2,000 people to sailing as a sport is something I’m pretty proud of,’ says Sir Robin Knox-johnston. He may have a sailing CV as long as his Farr 56 – the first sailor to achieve a non-stop solo circumnavigation of the world, further global voyages through the Jules Verne and Velux 5 Oceans races, Route de Rhum transatlantic race where he finished third, aged 75 – but it is his role as Clipper Race founder and executive chairman that really makes him smile.
‘Some 40% of the crew had never sailed before. The other 3,000 had done a bit but they’ve gone to sea as a result of the race – and when I see their self-confidence and achievement at the end, watch them around the deck of a boat and realise how good they’ve become, that makes me very proud.’
Given his nautical credentials, you might think Sir Robin hails from a sailing family. ‘Good gracious, no. My Dad worked for a shipping company but he didn’t have a boat. My mother’s cousin was a captain in the Navy, but on my father’s side it was farming. I grew up in Beckenham, Greater London – you can’t get more suburban than that.’
It was during the Second World War, when his family spent time in Heswall on the River Dee that he first set sail, aged four, in a converted wooden orange box. ‘I stood on it and it sank – an early introduction to Archimedes’ principle,’ says the 82-year-old.
He was ‘determined to go to sea’ from the age of eight and to his headmaster’s ‘disgust’, Sir Robin, who would have made an Oxbridge candidate, quit school in the middle sixth, and learnt to sail in the Merchant Navy, a vital skill as the crew sailed lifeboats if the ship sank.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS
One of nine sailors to depart Falmouth in 1968 for the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, during his 312 days at sea, Sir Robin made a weekly radio call for two months, then his radio broke and he could only listen. ‘Communications are so much better now. It’s instant. It was easier for me without the distraction, feeling you should be contacting this person or that person. Actually you’ve got a boat to sail, so focus on that.’
Foul-weather gear, forecasting services and electronics were also in their infancy. ‘I was wearing Navy boating gear with a sweater over the top and that’s all I had. ‘We didn’t have polar gear. By the time
I got home, mine was porous, keeping
‘One of my greatest pleasures is cruising in company – the joshing that goes on between you is all part of the fun’
the wind out a bit but not completely.’
Without satellites and therefore Global Positioning System (GPS) Sir Robin was ‘totally dependent’ on his sextant, plus the barometer, wind direction, and his charts.
‘You couldn’t tell in the Southern Ocean for instance how deep the depression might be; you might get caught in a really nasty one, and on a couple of occasions I did. I couldn’t dodge them the way you can now.’
With the help of a friend, Sir Robin had created a self-steering system, using two vanes running each side of the mizzen mast: ‘It worked as far as Australia and then it finally decided to pack up. Then it was a question of balancing the boat. I used to lie on the leeward bunk without the bunk wall, so if she gybed I’d be thrown onto the deck and even if I was very tired that would wake me up. Then I’d get up and gybe her back.
‘Eventually I got better at balancing her, and I still can to a certain extent.
I lash the helm and can usually get Suhaili to sail a pretty good course.’
EMBRACING CHANGES
Despite his skill with a sextant, which he still carries, Sir Robin is delighted by the ‘fantastic developments in electronics’, GPS especially. ‘But AIS I think is contributing almost as much to safety as radar. It’s amazingly effective.’
He advises anyone wishing to cross oceans to use GPS, but also to learn traditional navigation. ‘If someone switches the satellites off, you had better know where you are – log your position at regular intervals.’
Sir Robin always uses ‘a little batteryoperated GPS device’ as a back up to his main system and for staying up on deck, in busy shipping lanes.
Developments in boat design also have his approval. ‘Foiling is here, you’ve only got to watch the America’s Cup – it’s quite incredible. I was lucky enough, Ben [Ainslie] took me out on his foiler and it was just a phenomenal experience.’
A big fan of the Vendée Globe, Sir Robin had hoped to attend the 2020-21 edition start, until COVID-19 restrictions scuppered plans. However he shared a daily blog. ‘Just to give some idea of why it’s so exciting.’
DON’T SIT THERE
Sir Robin’s ‘hard as nails, tough as hell and brilliant’ Northern Irish Granny Johnston taught him ‘do as you would be done by,’ and that ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves... In other words, get on with it yourself, don’t sit there waiting for someone to help you.’
He cites Pip Hare’s performance in the latest Vendée Globe Race as an example, when Pip replaced a lost rudder in testing conditions: ‘It was a very, very good piece of seamanship, full marks to her. But she’d trained for it. And she used Conrad Humphreys’ trick of weighting the old rudder with chain so it would drop out, because otherwise she’d have had an awful job, so it was very, very interesting. ‘You watch what people do, when faced with a problem, how best to solve it?
‘In my case, dealing with really big waves in the Southern Ocean, I couldn’t sail as I normally did, Suhaili was going to get smashed. I threw 600ft of warp in a bight out the back and she swung perfectly downwind, which was largely down-waves as well, and it was very, very comfortable.’
BEST SKIPPERS
Sir Robin believes the best Clipper Race skippers have people management skills: ‘We take their Yachtmaster or Ocean Master with all its commercial endorsements for granted because they’ve got to have that. We’re looking for what experience they’ve got, and it varies incredibly. Nikki Henderson [youngest ever Clipper Race skipper] was 23 when she applied and turned out to be absolutely brilliant. Alex Thomson, only 24 when I took him on as a skipper, turned out to be an excellent motivator of his crew and a very good technical sailor. He’s still a close friend, as is Nikki.’
‘Sometimes you get someone who on paper, really should be good at it, but you end up saying “You’ve got to go – your crew is unhappy, your ticket is in my back pocket.”
‘It is crew management, absolutely vital. You get a well-motivated crew and they’re likely to be safe because they will look after and help each other, which is exactly what we want them to be doing.’
STILL SAILING
Sir Robin usually takes one crew aboard Suhaili these days, whilst he doesn’t take his Farr 56 out unless he has four on board. ‘At 56ft she’s quite a big boat. Coming in and out of port, you’re manoeuvring, and it’s nice to have people put the lines ashore for you.’
He has modified his Farr to get nine aboard. ‘Last July to August, eight of us took her up to the West Coast of Scotland and had a marvellous time – the weather was fantastic.’
Another favourite destination is Greenland: ‘We went up there two years ago with the Farr and we got right up Scoresby Sund. We wouldn’t have done that 30 years ago, the ice has thinned. There’s a lesson for everyone to think about as well.’
The coast of Africa, from Mombasa down south is also ‘absolutely glorious. Again, you see very little traffic, that’s the joy of it.’
‘But there are still places I’d love to go and see, like the north-west coast of Australia, or Polynesia. There’s still so much to do.’
‘I’ve never, ever bollocked anyone for waking me up because they’re uncertain, but my goodness I have if they didn’t and they should have done’