The tough old bird pictured above was the first man to sail non-stop, alone, around the world. He did it when a fair portion of you reading were likely unborn or at best, falling out of your water wings at the wading pool. Then he did it again in 2007 at the age of 68 in an Open 60, the oldest ever competitor in the Velux 5 Oceans Race. He's Robin Knox-Johnston, and despite my republican tendencies, I would be happy as hell to call him "sir".
Read this if you want to understand the type of mind that thrives best at sea: a perfect balance of methodical and adventuresome and instinctual.
Knox-Johnston chides himself for not preparing well enough, for starting late, for spending far, far too much time fiddling with balky electronics and cryptic comms devices, and for perhaps having the wrong motives in leaving at all, so recently after the death of his wife from cancer. And yet he is clearly most fully alive at sea, and his deep seamanship, honed by years in the British Merchant Marine and the Naval Reserve, keeps him safe and still moving when other, arguably better equipped and race-ready competitors fall afoul of weather, tactics or gear failure.
You, and most certainly I, will never ocean race at this level, and nor would many of us want to, but the lessons available to even the weekend sailor from Sir Robin can illuminate and improve anyone's messing about in boats.
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