I started my professional sailing career in 1968, instructing at the Plymouth Sailing School in Plymouth, Devon, the south-western home of Britain's Royal Navy. Moving to South Africa in 1972, I was hired as Chief Sailing Instructor at the Ocean Sailing Academy in Cape Town.
In 1983 I visited the United States for the first time, on what I had intended to be an extended 3-month vacation. I planned to travel a loop across the northern US from the east coast to the west coast, and then a southern loop back again. I ended up staying for thirty months! I worked here in Maryland during two summers as a sailing instructor and charter & delivery captain, and I was lucky enough to spend the intervening winters working (and skiing!) in Vail, Colorado, or delivering boats in the Caribbean. Returning to Cape Town in September 1986, I again taught at the Ocean Sailing Academy. I also worked as a river guide for Felix Unite Adventure Tours, leading week-long canoe/ camping trips along the Orange River, the natural border between South Africa and Namibia.
On the 2nd of February 1988 I sailed, with a crew of three, from Cape Town, South Africa, as the delivery captain of the Bruce Farr designed 38 foot sloop Maya. After calls at St. Helena, Ascension Island, Brazil, Suriname, Granada, Dominica, St Lucia, the British & U.S. Virgin Islands and Ft Lauderdale, Florida, I returned to the glorious Chesapeake Bay. We completed the delivery in Havre de Grace, Maryland on the 18th of May, ending a passage of 8,534 nautical miles (Please read the Havre de Grace Record news story for additional information).
In 1992 I founded Maryland Sailing Inc, a sailing school and bareboat charter company. In 1994 I discontinued charter operations in order to focus on providing top-quality delivery services and personalized sailing instruction programs.
I transited the North Atlantic for the 2nd time in 2002 on the delivery passage of Free Flight, a Bristol 45.5 center cockpit sloop. With a crew of three, which included my colleague Capt. Bill England, we departed Palma, Mallorca in the western Mediterranean on 10 January 2002. We made our U.S. landfall in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on 6th March, via Gibraltar, the Canary Islands and the British Virgin Islands. During the passage from the British Virgin Islands to Ft Lauderdale we had the unique experience of encountering an abandoned trimaran some 65 miles due east of San Salvador Island. Please read the Harford County Aegis news story for additional information about the mystery of the trimaran.
In mid-December 2011 I completed my 3rd trans-Atlantic passage onboard S/Y Persevere, a Beneteau 57 centre cockpit sloop, on a passage of 2600 nautical miles from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to St Lucia, BWIs, as part of the 2011 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers.
